Owl and the City of Angels (40 page)

“Where’s my bodyguard?” I countered.

Odawaa smiled. “Maybe I shot him.”

I could feel the sweat pilling on my forehead now . . . I hoped he didn’t notice or chalked it up to working in the heat. “Then I guess I don’t know anything.”

Odawaa pulled out a handgun. Not the flashier, more intimidating rifles his men carried but a gun you pull out when you’re faced with the very real inconvenience of having to shoot someone. He pointed it at Nadya’s head. “I do not believe you.”

“I can translate it for you,” Nadya piped up. “In fact, I’m better with languages than she is.”

The way Nadya said
languages
 . . .

Odawaa narrowed his eyes. “Why would you help us?”

She jerked her head in my direction. “Because she has a bad habit of getting people killed and I’m more interested in my own neck.”

He seemed to consider that, then offered her the book before turning to his men.

I shook my head at Nadya, indicating I thought it was a bad idea. Blown up by misfiring magic was worse than pirates.

But she either didn’t see me—doubtful—or was ignoring me.

I watched as she opened the book and flipped through the pages, settling on one I didn’t like the look of. A curse . . . a sleep spell, by the looks of it.

“Nadya, bad—ow!” I turned to the guard, who’d rammed me again with the gun.

“No speaking to your friend,” Odawaa called.

While the guards were concentrating on me, I caught Nadya mouth the words, “
Let me try to invoke it, all right?
”

Not that I had a choice. Oh this was going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Nadya started to read out loud from the page, under her breath, pronouncing the ancient Egyptian deity supernatural words until she’d spoken the last one.

I waited, all my muscles tensed. Nothing happened. We were still in one piece, which was a bonus, but Odawaa and his men were still awake.

And then the wind picked up.

“Is that supposed to happen?” I whispered to Nadya.

“I don’t know, you tell me—you’re the one with experience in curses—”

“Well, I don’t see any of them sleeping yet.”

“Here, let me try another one.”

“Try another one?” I grabbed for the book, and yelling from Odawaa’s right- and left-hand men ensued. “Are you out of your mind?”

“If
you
had read it, there would be shrapnel already. Alix, let go of the book before they shoot us.”

“No, you let go!”

I’m sure either Odawaa or one of his men would have shot at us eventually, except that the crate Nadya had been in minutes before—the one holding the golem—shifted.

Everyone in the room froze, including Nadya and I, with both our hands on Carpe’s spell book.

“I thought you said that was a sleeping spell you read.”

“It was.”

“Then why is the golem moving?”

Nadya inclined her head and let out a breath. “Unforeseen magical misfire?”

The crate shifted again—this time with more force rocking the crate from side to side.

The two men holding the rifles both crossed their chests, said fast prayers, and backed up towards the exit—pointing the guns at the crate instead of us.

Odawaa turned to face us. “What manner of trick is this?”

“Yeah—I’d follow what your men are doing and back up,” I said as Nadya and I made for the stack of unopened crates behind us.

Odawaa barked a command at his men. They stopped short of running out of the tent, but this was the first time I saw any inkling of dissension, with both of them barking right back. Superstition one, modern science, zero.

Odawaa aimed his gun at me, not even a trace of the friendly façade left. “I do not know what trick this is, but you will bring it to an end now, or I will shoot you both.”

To give you an idea how badly the thing in the box scared us, neither of us stopped backing up. “Odawaa, trust me, if we could stop it, we would,” I said. We were almost at the crates.

Odawaa’s gun fired in the sand near my feet. Still I didn’t stop.

“You can either stand here and shoot us, or run,” I said. “I
strongly
suggest you run.”

The gun fired again, this time grazing my shoe. Well, it’s not like I hadn’t tried to warn him . . .

The crate cracked along its front as the first stone foot hit the ground.

That was it for Odawaa’s two men. They bolted for the entrance, ignoring Odawaa as he screamed after them.

I shared the sentiment. Gun or not, negotiations were over. “You know all that stuff you don’t believe in?” I said to him, nodding at the crate. “That’s it.” And despite the gun still aimed at us, Nadya and I dove behind the nearest intact crate.

Golems are . . . well . . . not a good idea is what it boils down to. Supernaturals used to make them to act as guards—ancient vampires were quite fond of them, as were genies and anything else that might have reason to hide from humans while they were sleeping. The problem is golems work on a primitive binary code, and you don’t always get what you pay for.

This one was big and made of rock. It stood about seven feet tall and had been sculpted without many features. Its torso consisted of a large, pendulous midsection, attached to a featureless head and rounded limbs. The whole thing reminded me of the Mesopotamian fertility gods. Golems weren’t built to look pretty, they were built to pound threats into roadkill.

Peering from behind the crate, Nadya and I stayed as still as possible. Golems responded to movement. Hopefully it would go for Odawaa, who was yelling for reinforcements steps away from the tent exit.

No such luck. It took two more steps out of the crate, but instead of running after Odawaa, it swiveled its stone head. Three unnaturally black pits chiseled into the front of its head focused in on us.

“If we split up and run, we might short-circuit it,” Nadya said.

“Or it could squish us.”

Turns out we didn’t have to test that theory. Odawaa’s reinforcements arrived and opened fire.

Like I said, golems work on binary logic. The guns going off overrode whatever proximity programming we’d triggered. Stone grating against stone, the golem swiveled and charged towards Odawaa and his men.

We took the opportunity to duck behind another crate while the bullets slapped against the oncoming golem, not that they were doing much good. Think rock-paper-scissors, except with bullets instead of scissors. Rock still wins.

Like idiots, they kept firing. I swore. You don’t try to defeat a golem, you run— fast—preferably into tight spots it can’t fit its limbs through. There’s a reason golems are found in tombs with a doorway smaller than they are.

As much as I’d have liked to get even with Odawaa and his band of merry pirates for pretending to be me . . .

“Odawaa, you idiot, you don’t shoot golems, you run!” I yelled.

Odawaa turned his gun in my direction. “There is no such thing as golems,” he snarled, a maniacal look on his face.

It’s the smart, sane ones who go ballistic when faced with their first supernatural.

“Don’t you think that’s a pretty fucking moot point—oh shit.” I ducked back down as Odawaa opened fire, bullets peppering the crates.

A high-pitched shriek echoed around the room, and I hazarded a peek back over the box in time to see the golem toss one of the pirates. I winced as bone met tent pole with a crunch. The man didn’t get back up—or move.

Odawaa’s sanity might’ve been getting a hell of a challenge today, but he wasn’t stupid. He and the remaining pirate abandoned their shooting and went for the tent flap.

Only problem was the tent wouldn’t halt a golem.

Come to think of it, the best bet was to follow their lead while the golem was busy. The crates were in the center of the room. We might be able to make a run for it and slide under the canvas.

I peeked over the edge to see where the golem was in time to see it bat Odawaa’s remaining man in our direction. I swore and ducked back down as the body collided with our crate. Bone cracking against plywood.

Yeah, not running. I heard Odawaa scream, I think, but I didn’t dare look—not with the golem lobbing human projectiles in our direction.

“That thing moves a hell of a lot faster than I thought it would,” I said to Nadya.

“Yes, its speed and agility are an unforeseen complication.”

“Unforeseen complication? Nadya, the
golem
is an unforeseen complication.”

She shrugged. “Like I said. Now stop worrying about how the golem got activated and start worrying about a way out—one that does not involve running by the golem.”

I frowned. “Me find a way? I was the one who told you not to read from Carpe’s goddamned magic book.
You
find a way out . . .”

The yelling and screaming had stopped.

Nadya frowned. “Go see what it is doing,” she said.

“No,
you
go see what it’s doing, it’s already thrown someone at me—oomph!” Without ceremony, Nadya shoved me so that I had no choice but to peek over the edge. Damn it, I needed to remember to push first next time . . .

No sign of Odawaa—or his body—and the tent flap had been torn off. Whether he’d gotten out or been thrown was up for debate. The golem was standing there, perfectly still. For whatever reason, programming or misfire, it had decided for the moment that this was the area it was supposed to protect. “I think it’s deactivated,” I said.

At the sound of my voice, its head swiveled around, the three black pits fixating on our crate.

I swore and ducked back down. What I needed was something that would trigger the attack response, get it going in one direction while we went the other . . . I scanned the things in reach. Vase? No, too expensive—I wasn’t that desperate yet. Buddha? The gold plate probably wouldn’t register as an attack—wait a minute . . .

I slid my hand between the crates as silently as I could and reached for the rifle strapped across the collapsed man’s chest. Eww, there was blood. Oh man, I signed up to be an antiquities thief specifically to avoid blood and shooting.

My fingers closed around the back of the gun strap, and I untangled it from the body.

Only problem was I didn’t know a goddamn thing about rifles. “Do you know how to use this?” I asked, handing it to Nadya.

She checked the gun. “It’s a Kalashnikov—that’s a yes,” she added when I gave her an exasperated look.

“Is it ready to fire?” I’m not one for guns—in my experience, unless you really know what you’re doing, the bad guys end up with the weapons—pointed at me.

She nodded, but a frown touched her face.

“Fantastic. I know exactly the distraction. Shoot the metal crates on the golem’s left,” I said.

“That’s a terrible idea—”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” I took back the gun and leveled the bullet end over the crate. “No!” Nadya yelled.

It was too late. I’d already pulled the trigger.

My plan had been to aim at the metal storage boxes piled on the far side of the tent and draw the golem’s attention away from us, leaving a short but clear pathway to freedom . . .

Fun fact: bullets ricochet when you shoot them at some types of metal. And the Kalashnikov is an automatic.

I swore and ducked back behind the crate with Nadya as the bullets rained back down on the artifacts and fakes, including the false Buddha statue. The pieces—brittle metal under the gold leaf—clattered to the ground all around us.

I knew I should have thrown the statue . . . maybe the golem hadn’t noticed?

I heard the granite on granite swivel as it charged.

Nadya shoved me to the left while she took off to the right. With two of us to chase, it might just short-circuit long enough to give us time to make it out under the tent flap.

The golem’s head swiveled towards me.

If the golem thought this was its new lair, then as soon as we slid under the tent flap, the off switch should be triggered. Or it might start rampaging through the pirates’ camp, but at this point I was desperate.

“Hurry up!” Nadya yelled. I checked over my shoulder and saw she was halfway under the tent. The golem had caught up.

The end of the tent was only a few feet away. Oh hell, I hoped I didn’t mess this up, otherwise I was going to be a sand popsicle . . .

The golem raised its arm to swing, and I dove. Maybe it was the fever, maybe it was just my personal brand of bad luck, but instead of sliding under the canvas, I slipped in the sand, the golem’s arms braced overhead.

There was no way I’d crawl out in time. I closed my eyes and winced. So that was how it ended; the great Owl smashed by an accidently triggered golem . . .

Before the golem could swing its rock hand down on me, a strong hand snatched my wrist and pulled me under the tent and out to safety. I felt the ground shake as the golem’s fist struck the sand. I looked up into Rynn’s face.

“Hi Alix, found a golem, I see?” he said, smiling.

Relief washed over me. “Let it never be said you don’t have good timing.”

But before I could do anything too embarrassing, Rynn turned to the man standing behind him. Not one of the pirates, but familiar-looking . . . dark skin with a blue tinge to it, no hair, tall.

“I told you they’d be where the pirates were screaming ‘Monster,’ ” Rynn said.

The man frowned at me, and I realized why he looked familiar. He was a ringer for the guards who’d been stationed at both Artemis’s and Daphne’s homes. A genie.

Rynn’s genie friend frowned at me and used the one word of supernatural I recognized.
Seereet
. Rynn shrugged at him in response, and the genie turned back to me. “She is very small for someone to cause that much trouble. I would caution you to find another human.”

“Hey!” I said.

Rynn patted the genie on the back. “Don’t mind Nomun, Alix, he means no harm. He’s an air genie. Not much of a filter either. Owes me a gambling debt, so he’ll be getting us into Syria.”

The genie shook his head at me, still not looking convinced. “I must say, incubus, as a point of honor I should offer to extinguish this one for you. So much trouble—”

“Yeah, I can really see the ‘no harm’ part, Rynn,” I said, backing up as the genie peered down at me.