Owl and the City of Angels (37 page)

He was real. “Nadya, we have a problem,” I said as I ducked a second swipe.

Running out of dodging space, I did the only thing I could—flashlight in hand, I ran for the workroom.

Unlike the reliefs carved elsewhere in the temple, the workroom was decorated in painted hieroglyphs uncannily preserved by lack of light and exposure. There was a slab of rectangular black granite in the center large enough to fit a human. I darted around the other side, putting it between me and Caracalla. I got a look at a few of the painted scenes—jars, organs; like an instructional on mummification.

“I see you found the preparation chamber,” Caracalla said. He darted to the left, then right, trying to make me run within range. Nope, not working—I was happy to wait him out behind the slab of granite.

“I never saw the point of waiting until people were dead to start the process. So much more personal and intimate when the subject is still alive.”

With the lull in Caracalla’s feinting around the table, I had a breath’s worth of break to change my comm channel. “Rynn, need help—”

It wasn’t Rynn who answered though. “Let me guess, you want him to force me to break into World Quest?”

I swore as Caracalla darted around the side after me. “Carpe, put Rynn on now!”

“Not until you promise—”

“Now! Or as soon as this mummy kills me, I swear to God I’m coming back for you.”

There was a soft click, not the electric snap that signified Carpe hanging up. “Alix?” came Rynn’s voice about the same time I found an unused urn under the table and launched it at Caracalla’s head.

“Mummy.” It was all I managed to get out before Caracalla resumed his chase.

“Tell me what’s happening.”

I ducked as Caracalla threw a discarded piece of tablet. “Fewer questions, more help—” I said.

“DMSO cocktail tranquilizer, left pocket of Nadya’s backpack—it will work on Passer.”

“Nadya?” I yelled as I dodged a piece of broken tablet thrown at my shoulder.

“I’ve got it—I can’t see enough to shoot though. You’ll need to come my way.”

Time to figure out who was smarter: me or a two-thousand-year-old mummy.

I darted left, then right—further into Caracalla’s reach than was safe. He took the bait and chased around my end. I dropped to all fours and slid under the table . . . My fingers brushed parchment—a leather-bound book.

Maybe this wasn’t a complete waste after all. Hoping it was Carpe’s spell book, I grabbed it before bolting back into the hall as Caracalla growled behind me.

“Get ready,” I said to Nadya as I bolted for the hall.

Caracalla was still growling, but I didn’t bother checking over my shoulder. I didn’t want to see how close he was.

“Alix, I need you closer—and use your flashlight, I can’t see a damn thing.”

Use your flashlight on the mummy chasing you while running . . . Yeah, that was going to go well . . .

I skidded to a stop a foot away from the pit and aimed the flashlight at Caracalla.

“Duck,” Nadya yelled.

I dropped to the floor and heard the pop of the tranquilizer gun. Three yellow-tailed darts lodged into Caracalla’s face and chest.

He plucked out a dart from his forehead and examined it. “Hmmm, interesting weapon,” he said, sniffing the concoction pooling at the tip with what was left of his nose.

“Rynn, it isn’t working.”

“Did you miss?”

“No, there are two darts sticking out of his chest. Caracalla isn’t even fazed. He’s just more curious than anything else.”

“Wait—Caracalla? Are you hallucinating again? This is Passer’s temple.”

“Apparently Caracalla took out Passer and moved in after I trashed his tomb, because apparently someone suggested I might be stopping in. Know anything about that, Carpe?”

“Hey! I don’t sell people to mummies!” Carpe said.

“You hijacked our plane, not a giant leap,” I said.

“You think I enjoy stealing airplanes and getting punched by friends who now hate me?”

“We are so not friends anymore,” I said, keeping my eyes on Caracalla.

“
Enough,
” Rynn said. “As much as I hate to say it, the elf wouldn’t have sold you out to the mummy.”

“Who did?”

“Someone else who wants the book. I wasn’t screwing around when I said this was life and death. And you seriously think I enjoy coercing my friends into doing things they don’t want to do, Alix?” Carpe added.

“Yes!”

“Knock it off, both of you. I didn’t pack anything for Caracalla,” Rynn said.

He added something else after that, which I’m sure would have been useful, but my attention was on the mummy, who tossed the dart to the side and started towards me again.

“I’m curious, now that you’ve given it your all, I wonder what will you try next?”

“Alix!” I turned in time to catch the rope Nadya threw. I wound it around my arm, testing the anchor to a statue. It held.

Now or never. I shoved the book in my jacket and leapt off the edge of the pit. I grunted as I hit the wall on the opposite side. Nadya started pulling the rope up while I climbed.

“Clever,” Caracalla said. “But you forget one important detail.”

“What? That you’re a half-rate mummy?”

“I can jump.” He took three strides back before leaping over the pit, landing a few feet away from us.

I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut. . . . I backed up in one direction while Nadya backed up in the other. Catching the movement, Caracalla turned his attention on her.

Yeah, not happening. I picked up a piece of granite and chucked it at his head. “Hey, half-rate mummy, over here!”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that monsters are predictable. They don’t like being insulted. Caracalla turned back towards me and closed in. Not that I had a plan or anything.

I tapped my comm. “Rynn, any ideas you have about defeating this guy would be awesome about now.”

But before Rynn had a chance to answer, Captain barreled out in front of me, hackles up and hissing a storm at Caracalla. Yeah, monsters are predictable. Cats not so much.

“Captain, not a vampire!” I started.

Captain, in the throes of attack cat, wasn’t having any of it.

I searched for a rock, anything to throw at Caracalla before Captain reached him.

But as Captain hissed and spit, Caracalla backed up . . .

Now, Maus have no effect on mummies whatsoever. Mummies being scared of cats was a myth, based on some nonsense of cats being guardians of the underworld. Scourge of vampires everywhere, yes, but guardian of the underworld Captain was not.

Through a combination of whatever was firing through Captain’s walnut-sized brain and whatever the hell Caracalla believed Captain could do to him, the effect was the same. Caracalla was backing up towards the pit’s edge.

Well, when opportunity presents itself . . . I kicked Caracalla in the sweet spot, grabbed my cat by his harness, and pushed Caracalla over the edge.

Nadya stared at me, jaw open.

“Start running. I have a sinking suspicion he might crawl out.”

We tore back towards the entrance and I pressed the communicator. “Rynn?”

I thought I heard his voice, but there was static. Shit, must be the part of the temple we were in. I pressed line two and tried Carpe—no answer either. Figures, he waits until I need to talk to him not to answer.

A small, cautious part of my brain thought we should make sure the coast was clear of IAA before bolting out in the open. Most of my brain agreed full heartedly we did not want to be in this temple when Caracalla crawled out of the pit . . .

I crossed the entrance a few paces ahead of Nadya and Captain.

Meaning I hit the trip wire first.

I landed flat on my face. I was aware of Nadya pulling up short behind me, cursing in Russian, and heard the click of safeties that told me multiple guns were pointed in our direction.

Damn, I hate the IAA . . .

I ignored the ringing in my head and pushed myself onto my forearms, hoping to get a good look at how many agents were pointing guns at us.

It wasn’t the IAA, or local Egyptians—not even Sudanese. Too tall and not the right ethnic background. If it wasn’t for where we were, I would have sworn we were surrounded by a group of Somalians.

What the hell would the Somali be doing staking out a tomb?

I pushed myself up to kneeling and looked to see who was in charge. Captain was nowhere to be seen. Here’s hoping he stayed hidden until Rynn and Carpe showed up.

One of the men, the shortest of the lot and the only one not pointing a gun at me, stepped forward, a fixed smile never leaving his face.

“You have something of mine. How fortuitous. And here we thought we would have to retrieve it ourselves.” His English was good and the accent suggested he’d been educated in London. He crouched down to pick up the spell book that had spilled out from my jacket.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

His smile widened. “Why, the Owl, of course. Antiquities thief extraordinaire.”

You know I often find myself saying things couldn’t possibly get worse.

I need to stop that. I also need to come up with a filter. “Oh you got to be fucking kidding me. You’re the assholes pretending to be the Owl?”

I didn’t get much more past that. A gun butt to the head will do that to you.

Well . . . at least for once it wasn’t the supernaturals taking potshots at me.

This time it was Somali pirates.

16

Pirates

Oh sweet Jesus, why does everything hurt?

Fun observation: coming to with a killer headache and my hands tied behind my back isn’t as much a shock as it used to be . . . though as I tried pulling my cramped legs in, I realized they were tied together as well.

Hunh. That was new. Come to think of it, so was the cage.

Why is it I always get knocked out anyways? Gun butt to the head this time, too, if I remembered correctly . . .

I tried to shift my legs into a more comfortable position and found two things; first, my ribs hurt like a son of a bitch. On the bright side, the foggy memory of someone landing a kick to my stomach hadn’t been a figment of my imagination.

The second thing I noted though was less expected; my legs were tied real tight, pins-and-needles-inducing tight. And I wasn’t all by my lonesome. I was tied back to back with someone else stuck in the cage, and in my opinion done with an excess amount of rope.

“Pssst, Nadya?” I whispered, hazarding a guess.

“Good, you are awake finally,” she said, and turned her head so she could see me out of the corner of her eye.

“I think someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure we didn’t up and try to walk out of here,” I said.

This time she replied in a string of Russian insults I don’t feel like translating or repeating right now. I don’t shy away from cursing, but even I have my limits.

The fact that Nadya hadn’t made any progress on her own told me someone really had gone to a lot of trouble. I filed that away in the “interesting” category.

“I don’t know about you, Alix, but I’m about ready to go above and beyond their expectations.”

“Oh I’ve well and already reached that point,” I said, and started scanning my immediate surroundings.

We were in a tent, the green khaki, military-grade kind, built to house a lot of equipment for short periods of time then get packed right back up. As far as its contents went, if it wasn’t for the small issue of being tied up in a cage, I’d be singing happy birthday to me. To quote World Quest, the place was a treasure whore’s dream. These guys had enough antiquities loot to rival the Smithsonian.

Captain, Rynn, and Carpe, however, were nowhere to be seen—at least not in my periphery.

“What happened to everyone else?” I asked.

“They found Rynn ahead of us, but I haven’t seen him since the truck. I don’t know what happened to Captain; he ran back into the temple after you tripped.”

I nodded, more for myself than Nadya. I was happy they hadn’t grabbed Captain. Him I could go back for later . . .

“The elf got away,” Nadya added derisively.

So much for sticking around to help. “Somehow Carpe saving his own skin doesn’t surprise me,” I said, though at least I had the satisfaction of knowing he didn’t have his book—the pirates did.

Speaking of which . . . I was about to ask Nadya if she’d had a chance to talk to Rynn and come up with a tentative game plan, but I didn’t get the chance, courtesy of muffled voices and footsteps outside the tent.

“Someone’s coming,” Nadya said.

“Look, just follow my lead,” I said.

Nadya snorted. “You are feverish and delusional. We follow my lead.”

“Yeah, but for better or worse, I have more experience dealing with people who tie me up and threaten to kill me. We’re using my methods.”

She struggled in order to see me. “Your methods involve pissing people off more than they already are.”

“It works, doesn’t it? And keeping them happy is a moot point. They already know who we are—or did you forget the ropes and cage?”

I’m sure she would have kept the argument going, but the voices outside the tent became voices inside it.

Showtime.

I let out a loud whistle. “Hey, Nadya, there’s more loot in here than the British Museum—how many trucks do you figure we need?”

She swore and did her best to elbow me. It might have packed a punch considering the condition of my rib, but she couldn’t get much of a windup.

Louder this time I added, “I mean, look at all this stuff. I think those might actually be terra-cotta warriors over there. Think we could get a few out without them knowing?” I wasn’t lying about that one either. There was one standing in front of half-unpacked cargo crates. Curse aside, I could spend a week cataloguing this stuff . . .

The footsteps picked up the pace.

“They are going to shoot you,” Nadya whispered.

“No, they’re not,” I whispered back. “If they were, they’d have done it already.” Yet another sentence I should not be that comfortable saying. For the benefit of whoever was making their way over, I added, “And aren’t you just a little bit curious why they have us so trussed up?”