Owl and the City of Angels (42 page)

“I told you to make World Quest your bitch. Where the hell do you figure negotiate fits into that?”

He straightened up. “It means we won’t be stealing, and they promise they’ll give us the map. They just want to talk.”

I closed my eyes.
Deep breath, Owl . . .
“Fine, get them online now so I can tell them to give me my fucking map.”

“It’s not technically your map, and it’s not that simple—”

I opened my eyes and narrowed them at him. He fidgeted but tread onwards. “Look, they want to meet with us in an hour and a half. As a piece of goodwill, they won’t remove our characters or ban us . . .”

“So let me get this straight. You have your spell book and I’ll
maybe
have a map in an hour and a half if the game designers decide to give it to us in a place of their choosing?”

“They’ll give us the map, but all bets are off if we no show. Sorry, but that’s the best I could do in line with my own ethics.”

The best he could do? I held out my hand. “Rynn, give me your gun,” I said.

“Why?”

“So I can shoot the elf and take my goddamn spell book back.”

Rynn and Nadya tried to grab me, but on account of my extreme sweatiness I slipped through their grasp, knocked Carpe to the ground, and straddled him. Considering Carpe was taller and heavier than me, I was surprised I’d knocked him over. “Give me my book back!”

“I’ll get you your map, I give you my word!”

“In an hour and a half I could be dead!” I wound up to hit him.

The fever had slowed me down, and he was able to hook my leg and flip me over. He pinned me down. Not hard, just enough to keep me from hitting him. “Will you please listen—What are you doing?”

I didn’t have enough strength to throw Carpe, so I was doing the next best thing—reaching around and grabbing his backpack zipper. “Getting my spell book back until you give me the fucking map.” I reached inside and felt around . . . found it. I started to pull it out, when Carpe grabbed my arm.

I used the fact that Carpe wasn’t trying to hurt me to my advantage. I grabbed both sides of his collar and crossed my arms, hoping chokes worked as well on elves as they did on humans.

“Will you stop that? It’s a matter of life and death that I deliver the spell book into the right hands—” Carpe forced his hand between my fist and his neck, buying his carotid artery a little more time.

“So is my map.”

It was at that point Rynn and Nadya hauled us apart.

I noted the genie, Nomun, had made an appearance as well and was watching from a little ways away.

“You’ll get your damn map soon enough,” Carpe said to me, sitting up and rubbing his throat.

“It’ll be too late,” I said. I was doing a passable job pretending I was OK, but it was a show. I was weak, and my vision was acting up.

Carpe’s face softened. “Look, I want you to get the curse lifted as well—as much as those two do—”

I snorted.

“But I’m not stealing it from the developers when they’ve offered me an alternative.” He stood up. He actually looked mad; he was even clenching his fists by his side.

Granted, so was I.

“Enough, both of you,” Rynn said, stepping between us. He pointed at Carpe first. “Give the book to Nomun. If you deliver the map, you can have the book. If not—” He shrugged.

Carpe glared at Rynn. “You know perfectly well I need that—”

“I
know
you traded Alix for a very specific map, which you have yet to produce. No map, no book. Only fair.”

Carpe swore but pulled the book the rest of the way out of his backpack and handed it to Nomun.

Rynn turned to me next. “Alix—”

“It doesn’t matter if he gets the map in an hour and a half, if I wait any longer I might start bleeding out of my nose. I need to be in there now, map or not.”

“There are two of you, no?” Nomun said, frowning.

Nadya shook her head. “Alix is the trap and tomb expert—I’m translation.”

“Nadya can pick up some of the slack, but not if I’m a drooling mess.” This was what I got for going on Carpe’s damn goose chase. I should have ditched him in Egypt . . .

“What if we went in now and you logged in once you were inside? We have a general idea where to go, no?” Nadya said.

I weighed that idea. The pirates’ notes on the dig had been surprisingly sparse, as if someone had given them most of the directions. Still, I had a general idea where under the monastery I was headed. It was the details about the catacombs underneath, the city itself, I needed.

“If we go now, we can use the thralls as a distraction,” Rynn added. “It’ll buy you time to get in. Nomun, can you get us in closer undetected?”

The genie looked over the encampment and nodded. “Close, yes, but not to the gates, not if you wish to remain secret.”

Rynn turned to me. “Alix, it’s your call.”

Risk getting caught in an IAA camp or put my trust in Lady Siyu being sufficiently motivated and capable of finding her own cure . . .

I grabbed my pack and shoved my laptop inside, since I’d be needing it.

Most of the lights in the monastery were on now that dusk had rolled into the mountains. I nodded at Nadya and Rynn. “Well, it certainly is prettier with the lights on. What do you say we wander over and take a look?”

Nadya grabbed her bag. “I thought you’d never ask.”

There certainly were a lot of IAA agents milling around. Funny how it looked like a lot less from a half mile away . . .

“I think I preferred the IAA when you could just stroll right in,” I whispered to Nadya.

We crouched behind an old stone wall that kept us hidden in the dark but wouldn’t provide an iota of cover if they started shooting. On top of that, my stomach was still churning after Nomun had dropped us off by way of air genie travel, which, by the way, is unnerving as hell . . .

I tapped my earpiece. Miraculously I hadn’t broken it yet. “Any bright ideas how to get inside?” I asked Rynn. Nomun had dropped him and his pirates off on the other side of the monastery, where the mountain offered more cover.

“At this point? Not without alerting every agent in the area,” Rynn said.

Nadya jabbed me in the side and pointed towards the main entrance as Cooper walked in accompanied by two other people, one of which was Odawaa, much to my dismay.

“Damn it, I’d really hoped the golem had gotten him,” I said.

On the bright side, Odawaa looked pissed and was having heated words with Cooper—probably about the disposable pirates.

I focused in on the third person following a few feet behind, who didn’t follow Odawaa and Cooper in but instead hung back by the entrance. Wait a minute . . . the gait, hunched shoulders, general meek stance. “Nadya, guy by the door,” I said, just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

She peeked over the crumbling wall. “What is Benji doing here?” she said after a moment. “I thought he was in Egypt.”

“That’s exactly why he’s here. You said yourself your Russian contacts were putting pressure on them to close this dig down, right? Where better to fly more manpower in from but Egypt? Benji knows his tombs, and it’s faster than flying someone in from overseas. Probably grabbed a few extra hands from Turkey and Israel too.”

In fact, the archaeologists were running around like worker ants. Burning the candle at both ends—dangerous and stupid. Dig sites—especially cursed ones—induced sleep deprivation in the best of grad students all on their own; working them like this was a recipe for disaster. On top of that, how the hell could the IAA expect to keep track of them all?

That and the addition of Benji to the equation gave me an idea . . .

“Change of plan,” I whispered. “I think I found us a better way in.”

She gave me a wary look. “How come I get the distinct impression I’m not going to like this?”

I smiled and pulled my hood up. “Because it’s a little out of the box.” I tapped my comm again. “Rynn, I think I know how to get inside. How about a distraction your way?” If they were focused on the mountainside, they wouldn’t be looking in our direction.

“The deal was to go in together.”

“Trust me, will you? Besides, you’ll be next to useless in the tomb, and we need someone out here to tell us what the hell Odawaa and Cooper are up to.”

“You don’t want to risk being spotted.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m not going on a vengeance streak against my former boss,”  . . . who ruined my life, completely annihilated any trust I had for authority figures . . . stole my goddamned thesis project I’d worked on for three years straight. . . .

“You forget I know you, Alix.”

I opened my mouth to say something snarky back, but there was no accusation or judgment in Rynn’s voice.

I let out my breath and calmed my nerves as I watched Cooper step outside to talk to Benji. I couldn’t bring myself to lie—not even a white one. “I’ll try to avoid him . . . no promises though if the opportunity presents itself.” There was a pause on Rynn’s end, so I added, “I’ve managed to stay alive for the past twenty-seven years all on my own—I can handle a few more hours. Just trust me, will you?”

“All right, one distraction coming up. Odawaa being there gives me an idea.”

I waited for what seemed like an awfully long five minutes.

I saw the flash before something exploded in the hills, and the next thing I knew there was screaming and gunfire. All the nearby IAA rushed towards the other side of the monastery. Odawaa and Cooper came out and jogged towards the commotion.

Now or never.

I threw my backpack over my shoulders. Captain mewed inside. “This time no vampires. I mean it. I don’t care what the hell you catch smell of.”

Captain mewed in acknowledgment, but I’m not sure it was in agreement.

We waited for two nearby guards to rush by before jumping the fence and entering the throng of panicked archaeology grads—unfamiliar to both the IAA and each other—every last one looking as worn out as we did.

Heads down, we hightailed it to the main entrance. Benji was hugging the nice, sturdy stone wall, where he had easy access to rooms that had stood thousands of years through earthquakes, wars, and other disasters. Good for Benji; he was learning to find good hiding spots from monsters and shrapnel.

My hand fell on Benji’s shoulder, and I squeezed. “Hey, fancy meeting you here.”

He spun around, his face drained white as if he’d seen a ghost. There were heavy bags under his eyes, a few days’ worth of stubble, and his normally neat hair was greasy.

“You look awful,” I said, and it was true; he looked worse than when I’d seen him a few days ago in Egypt.

He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Nadya clamped her hand over his mouth and together we pulled him into a darkened, unguarded side alcove just inside the monastery proper. I made the universal symbol for
Shhh
and, slowly, Nadya removed her hand from his mouth.

“Alix—what the hell?” Benji started.

“Knock off the high horse. I’m not the one opening up a cursed dig site.”

He glared as he pushed greasy bangs out of his face. “I’m not here by choice. They moved me and ten other archaeologists in two days ago, and we’ve been working nonstop. Now get the hell out of here before I get in trouble. I almost got sent to Siberia for Alexandria.”

“I’m sorry, you must not have heard the cursed part.”

“You think I don’t know? Everyone knows the site’s cursed, and they have us excavating anyways. It’s not my call—”

“They’re selling cursed artifacts, Benji,” Nadya said.

Just when I thought his face couldn’t get whiter . . . “Bullshit.” Funny thing, he said the words but didn’t sound so convinced.

I pulled out my laptop and showed him the pieces sold to Daphne, then I filled him in on Odawaa.

His face got whiter. “There’s no way the IAA knows this is going on,” he started.

“It’s Cooper and his pirates.”

“Cooper said he was a local consultant, to avoid skirmishes.”

“Funny, he told me he was Owl, international antiquities thief for hire. Funny story, the IAA has spent the past week hunting me down for selling cursed items from this dig site.”

“We don’t even know all the artifacts he smuggled out yet,” Nadya said.

Benji searched through the pictures, then looked up at me as if I were to blame. I sympathized with him—really, I did. If it hadn’t been for the curse and my fever, I’d have left him the hell alone.

No, that’s a lie. I might sympathize with Benji, but I couldn’t let Cooper and Odawaa take more artifacts out of the city. I’ve got a lot of personality faults, but letting them inadvertently kill people with something they couldn’t possibly protect themselves from? I’m not that far gone yet.

“What do you want?” he said.

“We need to get me into the lower catacombs—where they’re finding the Neolithic stuff,” I said.

“What! No—” He tried to run, but Nadya stopped him.

“Benji, if we don’t get into the catacombs and cut off the supply, more people are going to die. What if we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg?”

“You want to end up in an IAA holding cell? Fine, go ahead and save the world, I’m getting the hell out of—”

All three of us shut up and flattened up against the wall as three guards shone their flashlights into the main monastery room. More yelling in both English and Somali reached us.