Owl and the City of Angels (50 page)

Rynn stayed nearby but only offered me an apologetic look, whereas Captain just backed the hell up.

“Turncoats,” I said to both of them.

Lady Siyu showed me the two snakelike fangs that protruded over her bottom lip. I gulped and lay where I was as she dipped the handful of pins into the vial of black liquid. After examining the needles with her gold snake eyes, she barked out something in supernatural to Rynn.

“She needs the sword, Alix,” he said. “And whatever the hell you do, don’t stall.” I nodded at the bronze sword beside me. Lady Siyu took it gingerly between her fingers and, with more enthusiasm than I thought entirely necessary, made a second slit down my forearm.

“Goddamn it—you could have warned me,” I said, for both Rynn and Lady Siyu’s benefit.

“
Be
quiet
—I will not tell you again,” she said, a hiss escaping between her teeth as she dipped each of the five needles in my blood that had collected on the sword . . . Oh no—I closed my eyes as she raised the first needle up and stuck it into my stomach, followed by the other four, one each in my arms and thighs.

I breathed in, then out, waiting for something—anything—to happen as Lady Siyu recited a string of musical-sounding supernatural. She removed more powder, white this time, from inside her bag, which she sprinkled over the acupuncture needles of death now sticking out of me. The powder curdled and hissed, giving off an acrid, incense-like smell.

“You need to give something up,” Lady Siyu said.

I stared at her in confusion.

“In order for the anti-curse to work, you need to offer me something of value,” she clarified.

“I’ve got a stockpile of Japanese Asuka-period pottery—one from the royal court of First Empress Suiko. You can have it,” I said.

Lady Siyu isn’t one for emotion—or, well, any expression really . . . except sneering. She’s got no problem expressing that. Her face went blank for a moment as she watched the pins, then gave her head a slight shake. “That is an . . . interesting offer, but inadequate—”

“Inadequate? Do you have any idea how hard it is to come across those pieces?”

Lady Siyu hissed, her old, disdainful expression right back where it belonged. “Something you part with that easily clearly means nothing to you. The magic in the pins cannot be lied to so easily.”

“Oh for—Who the hell made up these stupid rules?”

Lady Siyu leaned in close, her fangs extended, barely holding her human form now. I guess I just have that effect on supernaturals. “If you cause me to fail in Mr. Kurosawa’s task, I will make your last moments on earth the most unbearable you could possibly imagine.” To make the point, she dug her clawlike fingers into my side. I yelled as she hit my bruised ribs.

I was about to tell her she and her damned pins could have the pick of my collection—hell, all of it—but I was wracked with a fit of coughs.

I heard Rynn yell at me somewhere, and Lady Siyu grabbed both my shoulders and shook me. “Agree to give me your most treasured possession,” she said.

Damn it . . . the Algerian cuffs, the ones they used to drag Cleopatra II and her brother in front of the new emperor. The first thing I ever excavated as a grad student. Not a hell of a lot I could do with them if I were dead . . .

Goddamn it, universe, why do you do this to me? I swear, every goddamn time . . .

“Swear it,” Lady Siyu said.

I took as much of a breath as my burning lungs would let me . . . “Fine,” I said as I reached up and grabbed her collar, pulling her in close. “You want my most valued treasure? You’ve got it—take your damn pick. Just get this curse the hell off me.”

Lady Siyu and I both glanced at the pins. The metal began to glow hot white. I screamed as my skin seared.

Lady Siyu smiled. “That will apparently do,” she said, then shook her head in an uncharacteristic show and added, “such a curious specimen of your species.”

I’d have come up with something to say, but the pins began to glow a black red. It hurt—more than you could imagine—but I was too spent to do anything more than whimper. Captain rammed his nose in my face.

Everything hurt.

But almost as soon as it had happened, the pins flared white again, burning off the red stain.

I breathed. My lungs weren’t on fire anymore . . . I sat up. “It worked,” I said, looking at my hands—
really
looking at my hands, since it had been days since I’d been able to see straight.

I was fine. Lady Siyu had cured me . . .

I heard laughter coming from where Cooper was still lying in a heap. “I’ll tell them it was you,” he said between laughs. “Who do you think they’ll believe?”

“Benji will say something.” Benji might not be a hero, but he had a conscience. Besides, he wouldn’t want someone like Cooper in charge of the rest of his life.

Cooper shook his head, still laughing. “Benji will play ball because that’s what he does.”

I should have hit him harder when I’d had the chance. Didn’t change the fact that he was right, of course.

“Oh they won’t believe Owl,” Carpe said.

I turned to where he’d spent the fight, hiding behind the mausoleum with the laptop. Not even a scuff.

Lightweight.

Carpe spun his computer around for Cooper and me to see. “But I’m betting on them being real interested in this YouTube video. Has a ton of views already, and I only posted it a minute ago.”

I watched the arrogance fade to disbelief, then shock as the video played out. Carpe had been live-streaming Cooper trying to sacrifice me on the bench, going on about zombies. Everything had been picked up in the audio, including Cooper talking about his supernatural ally.

Never, ever underestimate a hacker.

Cooper’s eyes shot to me, then Carpe. In a surprising show of athleticism, he bolted up and ran for the bridge. He would have made it if Nadya hadn’t clotheslined him.

Rynn caught him, and I’m pretty sure he dislocated Cooper’s shoulder before connecting Cooper’s face with his knee. Before Cooper could scramble back up and make another run for it, Rynn caught him by the back of his green cargo jacket. “New model, remember?” he said, and hit Cooper in the face.

Nadya kicked him hard in the kidney. “If you ever tell me I look good again, Cooper, I will do worse than Alix and Rynn combined.”

Cooper stared at her, not believing that the woman previously known as the “superhot chick” amongst our archaeology cohorts had taken him out so easily.

“What do you want to do with him?” Rynn asked me, still holding Cooper’s jacket.

“Knock him out until the IAA gets here. And get the damn lamp—”

A gunshot sounded. Rynn, Nadya, and I dove out of the way, leaving Cooper where he was.

Odawaa, his sanity looking worse for wear, kept the gun pointed at us as he motioned for Rynn to back up. The downfalls of fights in places with no cover; I was completely exposed, and so was Rynn.

“I need to recover my losses somehow,” Odawaa said as he grabbed Cooper and began to drag him towards the SUV.

Rynn and I started to run after him as soon as the car started, but Carpe stopped us. “Owl!” he yelled. “You need to see this—now.” He showed me his laptop.

A CNN bulletin from L.A.—Hollywood Boulevard, to be precise—was now playing. A news presenter was trying to broadcast what looked like a mob of people screaming and running for their lives behind him.

That wasn’t what got my attention though . . . it was the line that scrawled across the bottom of the screen.
Zombie Apocalypse of 2014.

Shit.

20

The Summer Zombie Invasion of Hollywood Drive

Well . . . That one’s out of the bag.

I couldn’t pull my eyes off Carpe’s computer screen.

It was . . . well . . . surreal.

Not the zombies, mind you . . . just how prepared everyone was . . .

“We’re not entirely sure yet if this is a hoax or an elaborate publicity stunt orchestrated by one of the local movie production companies,” the newscaster said. “But one thing is for certain; locals are voicing their concern—”

I figured the newscaster would’ve said more, but he was forced to dive out of the way as two Humvees screeched by; their passengers held various weapons out the window, including baseball bats, a rifle, a handgun or two . . . and at least one chain saw. In the background I heard someone yell, “Everyone out of the way—zombie apocalypse—we know what to do!”

I watched a few more seconds of video play out as the Humvees knocked over a street sign and caused two cyclists to careen into a bus stop. I think there was a gunshot fired as well before the camera cut out. Not one zombie had made an appearance on-screen—just panicking people.

OK . . . somehow I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Where there’s a will, a way, and a large conglomerate of people with semiautomatic weapons . . .

“I hate to say this, but this is kind of like that game Zombie Walkers—”

Nadya just stared at me in shock. “How stupid are you people?”

“Have you played our video games? We’re practically conditioned for this stuff.”

She said a few less-than-complimentary things in Russian while I frowned at the screen.

“That’s Hollywood Boulevard—there’s no way zombies got that far before Lady Siyu dropped them” . . . unless they’d started running. Not a comforting thought . . .

Carpe already had YouTube videos up on-screen. “I think the problem is worse than we initially thought.”

He showed me a choice video highlighting a very fresh-looking zombie in a hospital gown. In fact, all the zombies in the image looked . . . well . . . fresh. It really wasn’t doing much, just randomly changing direction as people ran and screamed around it, though it did lunge at someone who got too close. Well, at least Cooper had no ambition besides filling the streets with zombies—he hadn’t told them to attack or chase or run.

I turned to Lady Siyu. “I thought you said you got rid of the zombies?”

She curled her lip. “I did,” she said. “Every zombie here is no longer moving.”

“Cooper’s curse must have had a wider range than we thought,” Rynn added.

She seemed to consider that. “I suppose, not knowing the effect of the multiple artifacts and the addition of your blood, that is possible.”

I jerked back from the close-up on the screen as an arrow lodged into the hospital-gown-wearing zombie’s forehead while the nearest neighboring zombie had its head smashed in as two guys rode by on bikes, one carrying a crossbow and the other a baseball bat. They traversed the crowd, picking off zombies.

“People are going to get killed,” I said. If they hadn’t already. “Any sign of the lamp?”

Everyone shook their heads. I noted there was no sign of either Daphne or Alexander. Amidst the gunfire they’d disappeared—without their artifacts, so at least for now their teeth were cut . . . figuratively speaking.

Well, at least I wasn’t cursed anymore . . . “Damn it, we need to get that lamp off Cooper.”

“He went with Odawaa in the jeep,” Rynn said. “Lady Siyu, the elf, and I will deal with them.”

I didn’t argue. We didn’t have a lot of time before the IAA was all over this place—and let’s face it, Lady Siyu and Rynn were the best suited to handle the situation.

“We’ll try to curtail the zombie hunters before anyone else gets killed,” I said, and grabbed Captain’s leash before heading off to the gates with Nadya.

“I believe you are forgetting your payment to the pins,” Lady Siyu said.

There was the trace of a smile on her face, and she looked happier than she had any right to be. I stuffed Captain under my arm. “Yeah, well, it’ll have to wait until I’m back in Seattle. You can have your pick of the treasure then—”

“The payment has already been decided on, and as you are carrying it with you, I see no reason to delay.” Her smile widened, and I followed where she was looking.

Captain mewed at me, wanting to be let down.

My heart caught in my chest, and I tightened my grip around him. “No—there is no way I offered you up my cat—”

“You offered your most prized possession, which I attest you are currently holding. The pins do not lie,” she said.

My prized possession meant treasure; Captain wasn’t a possession, he was my damn cat. Besides, I wasn’t convinced I could make him stay with anyone—even if I considered it, which I wasn’t. “Over my dead body,” I told her.

I think that’s what she’d been waiting for. “I will be happy to arrange,” she said, and took a step towards us.

Realizing something was up, Captain let out a cross between a mew and a growl.

Rynn stepped between us and grabbed my shoulders. “Alix, not now, it’s not worth it,” he said.

“I’m not giving that harpy my cat—”

Rynn turned to Lady Siyu. “I don’t believe the cat will go willingly this evening, and there is the issue of Alexander and any other vampires in L.A. Can we agree to leave this matter until later?”

She inclined her head in agreement, but the smug expression didn’t vanish as she headed towards the black convertible she’d come in.

“Rynn, under no circumstance am I handing over Captain to
her.
”

“I don’t think it will come to that, but now is not the time or place. We’ll find something else, I promise.”

I drew in a breath and let Captain down, still holding his leash for dear life. “I’m trusting you,” I told him. How could I have been so stupid—it was Lady Siyu!

“I know,” he said as he touched his head to my forehead, a heavy look on his face. “Alix, be careful.”

I snorted softly. “You’re the one going after the pirates and the zombie king. We’re just going to try and persuade a few zombie apocalypse enthusiasts to stop . . . well, shooting.” I pushed away, wanting to get Captain as far away from Lady Siyu as possible right now in case she changed her mind, but Rynn held me back.

“It’s not the humans I’m worried about, it’s the supernaturals who might be involved.” He glanced to where Lady Siyu was pressing the horn in the black convertible. “Think. Out of all the convoluted things you’ve seen over the past week, does it make sense that Alexander and Daphne were behind it? You said it yourself, they had no idea what they were orchestrating.” He nodded around at the chaos around us. “And whoever is behind it is someone Lady Siyu, Mr. Kurosawa, and I can’t pinpoint—and they don’t want us to know what their game is yet.” He looked around the cemetery, as if searching. “Despite the chaos, it feels like this was a test—probing, to see where the weak spots are.”