Owl and the Japanese Circus (50 page)

Something scuffed against metal above me. Adrenaline up, I jumped off the bed and scanned the ceiling. The air vent—something
was coming through the air vent. I grabbed the bleach water gun and UV flashlight and ducked behind the antique sofa chair. I had a flash of anger at Rynn for leaving me here. It was small consolation that he’d been wrong about things getting in—especially since chances were real good I wouldn’t be able to tell him,
I told you so.
Well, I’d be damned if I wouldn’t put up a fight.

Something was kicking the grate loose. I readied the water gun and turned the flashlight on. I heard the meow before the grate fell and Captain stuck his head through. He gauged the distance to the bed before launching onto it. He had my black makeup brush roll I’d left in the bathroom in his mouth. My lock-pick kit. Anyone who says cats aren’t trainable . . .

Captain close on my heels, I let myself out of the bedroom and headed for the main window, where I’d left the window washer bench. I wasn’t planning on taking it all the way up to the roof; too good a chance someone would see me. But I bet the adjacent room wasn’t locked.

I stepped through the window and closed the glass behind me. Captain howled and began scratching the glass. “Dude, no way. There’ll be vampires,” I said.

He meowed balefully through the window.

I went to the far edge of the bench and stepped over onto the wide ledge that ran along the wall. I found finger holes and started to inch my way across. I could still hear Captain howling.

When I reached the adjacent room’s window, I made my first mistake: I looked down.

Shaking, I pried the window open with one of my blunter tools and slid through. As suspected, the door was unlocked. I checked the hallway before heading to the service elevators.

I was back in the game.

It dawned on me as the gold elevator doors slid shut that I was about to do what I’d sworn I wouldn’t. Break into a red dragon’s treasure room.

The service elevator took its sweet time going up, chiming like the bells on Mr. Kurosawa’s slot machines. I was glad I had the water gun under my jacket. I removed it and aimed it at the unopened doors, just in case, hoping that snakes liked bleach about as much as skin walkers did.

Something nagged me as I waited for the doors to open. Marie was this stupid, sure, but Lady Siyu? She was egotistical, aloof, bigoted against humans, and elitist, but not stupid. She had access to Mr. Kurosawa’s treasure room; why hadn’t she just grabbed the scroll and then killed me and Nadya? She could have been on the private jet by now, scroll in hand. Or maybe the lack of plan was her plan?
Come on, Owl, think. That’s what you’re supposed to be good at.

The elevator doors slid open to a mirrored hall covered in the black lotus design. “You!”

I raised my hands. Slowly.

A very transformed and very angry Lady Siyu stood at the end of the hall. Unlike the naga I’d met in Bali, Lady Siyu’s skin and tail were
mottled green and gold, instead of white, and she was half the size. Her black hair framed her face in a plaited crown that reminded me of a pharaoh’s headdress. Confirming my suspicion, Lady Siyu raised her tail. The bone rattle echoed off the mirrors.

A chill ran down my spine. Only one type of Naga had a rattle. Viper Queens. Worse temperament, more venom.

And in her hand was the scroll.

“You?” Lady Siyu snarled again, as if I were the devil itself. Then she lunged at me with a lightning-quick strike.

I dove back inside the elevator and slammed the Close Door button, then pressed the emergency button for good measure. Where the hell were Oricho and his kami? My stomach sank; if Lady Siyu had had no problem taking out two of Oricho’s kami, she must have reached him first.

I called Rynn. It went straight to voice mail. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me—” I swore and waited for the message chime. “Rynn?” I said, and covered the receiver as the elevator doors rattled.

I pressed the mezzanine button repeatedly. Nothing happened. Lady Siyu must have damaged the elevator when she’d hit it with her tail.

Heavy . . . solid metal doors. They locked down in emergencies, right?

In answer, the entire elevator swung on its suspension as Lady Siyu crashed against the doors again, this time leaving a serpent tail–shaped dent.

I pulled my hand off the receiver. “Rynn! Get up to Mr. Kurosawa’s casino now. Lady Siyu has the scroll—”

That was as far as I got before two sets of red lacquered claws broke through the elevator seal and began to pry the doors apart. I swallowed hard as they slid open a few centimeters and I caught a glimpse of a fang set in red lips. I lifted my foot and rammed my boot heel into the claws. One broke, and I was rewarded with a screech as Lady Siyu withdrew them, clipping another one against the metal.

“Try a can opener, bitch snake,” I yelled.

Me taunting the naga through the partially opened elevator door was premature.

I heard the warning rattle and jumped back as her tail crashed into the doors again, deepening the dent. Lady Siyu wedged her claws back through, but this time she worked them back and forth in a disjointed unity, like the spines of a sea urchin. The door slid open another few centimeters until she could reach a hand through, her scales glinting under the fluorescence. She pressed her face against the crack, and drops of black venom collected on her fangs as she snarled, “I will feast on your bones, little thief.”

Double shit.

I texted as fast as my fingers would let me.
Rynn, get your ass up here now. Naga—angry naga
—

I hit Send as the doors opened. They screeched with every inch gained as only shearing metal can do.

Most of Lady Siyu’s black hair had come loose by now, and thick strands hung in her face, making her parted red lips that much more sinister. She growled, and the rattle sounded to my right. I couldn’t help but look. A clear misdirection, which I didn’t realize until her tail whipped from the left.

At my head.

I ducked and dove out of the way, but the elevator was too confining. The bone rattle smashed into my hand, sending my cell phone into the elevator’s glass wall. It dropped to the floor in three pieces. So much for calling for help. Lady Siyu smiled, raised her tail, and hissed as she readied another blow. Seeing no reason to stay in this elevator death trap, I waited until her tail was arched in the air and baseball-slid under it. As soon as I was past, I tucked my feet under and came up in a run. I heard her snarl as I bolted down the hall. There was a crash that sounded like collapsing drywall; I presumed it was her coming after me, since there was no way in hell I was looking over my shoulder.

On a good day, snakes—let alone a three-hundred-pound
naga—were faster than me. I needed interference, and fast, so I darted into the first set of open doors I came across . . . and skidded to a halt in front of Mr. Kurosawa’s maze of slot machines.

Goddamn it, I can pick them.

I bolted to my left down the first row of slots. With my first step, on cue, the chimes and bells started to ring.

I heard Lady Siyu scream amid the whine of crunching metal and sick, mistuned chimes. I ducked in beside a green slot machine flashing four-leaf clovers and peeked around the edge in time to see a slot machine two rows away catapult into the air and take out two more on the way down. Snakes in general are sensitive to vibration and sound. With all the slot machines going off, she wouldn’t be able to hone in on me.

Well, score one for the ghosts—though I doubt Mr. Kurosawa had had quite this in mind when he’d trapped them here. I stayed where I was.

“Get back here,
thief,
” Lady Siyu screamed.

“What did you do to Oricho?” I yelled back.

She growled and swayed her head from side to side, trying to pinpoint my voice through the slot vibrations. Her eyes glinted more gold than green under the lights. “You humans are all alike, thieves with no honor,” she screamed, and took out three more slot machines not that far away from my hiding spot.

Damn it, I should probably run—now . . .

I was timing Lady Siyu’s outbursts to make another run for it when I caught movement in the hallway behind the open doors.

Rynn.

He slipped in just as Lady Siyu’s back was turned, then ducked into the shadows.

I switched gears; I needed to keep her occupied, and pissing her off seemed like the best way to do it.

“You’ve got a really strange definition of stealing,” I yelled back. “If I was holding Mr. Kurosawa’s scroll in one hand, that would be one thing—Oh no, wait, that’s you.”

Lady Siyu spat and lunged not far from where I was hiding, taking out another machine. I couldn’t help wondering what happened to the ghost when its house was smashed to smithereens—did it piggyback with a buddy? Disappear into some netherworld? A sickening thought struck me as an old Japanese pot toppled on its side and rolled across the floor. Just how long had Mr. Kurosawa been collecting ghosts?

Bad timing for contemplation, I know, especially since Lady Siyu had stopped her tantrum.

The picture of calm and serene, she swayed back and forth on her tail, lifting herself to full height. She tilted her face up, and her red forked tongue flicked up into the air.

I held my breath. Damn it, I wished I could remember whether nagas smelled with their tongues, like snakes. From the way she turned and smirked right at me, I guessed she could smell where I was just fine.

In two sinuous slides she was in front of my lucky charm slot machine. She gripped the sides and wrapped her tail completely around it. “I will not entertain your lies. I claimed the scroll first to protect it from
you,
” she said.

“As if,” I said. I threw my jacket in her face and dodged to the side, but she was faster and tripped me with a tail sweep, knocking me flat on my ass. She came in for the kill at lightning speed, pinning me down. Her jaws extended and opened to strike. Black venom ran down her fangs and collected at the tips.

What the hell was Rynn doing? Checking email? I needed to buy myself time. I wriggled underneath Lady Siyu, making it next to impossible for her to strike.

“Why—the hell would I go to the trouble of finding and handing the scroll over if all I wanted to do was steal it back?” I said.

With a hiss, she pinned my arms down. “Humans are all the same. Liars, cheats, greedy, destructive—not fit to walk the earth.” Her tongue flicked out, smelling and tasting my cheek.

Now that she had me pinned, I was having trouble breathing
under the weight of her tail. “Destructive? I’m not the one trashing the whole goddamn casino,” I said.

“You plan on using the scroll,” she said, accusation dripping from each syllable.

I choked down a scream.

Anytime now, Rynn, anytime
.

“Why the hell would—I want to kill—argh—everyone?” I strained to say.

“I’ll send slivers of your corpse back to the treacherous incubus,” she said. She bent her head back and opened her jaws wide, wider than should have been possible. Her fangs arched out, gleaming with black venom.

The quip about Rynn pissed me off. I set my jaw and tried one last time, using every last bit of adrenaline to wriggle out from under her. It was as if she had a sixth sense for injury—she shifted her weight and drove her hand into my dislocated rib. I screamed, and a wave of nausea hit me as I experienced a new kind of pain. A single drop of venom fell on my face, numbing and burning my cheek at the same time.

Someone whistled from behind Lady Siyu.

The pressure eased off my chest. Lady Siyu swiveled her torso around to see who was behind her.

“I hate being talked about behind my back,” Rynn said, holding a harpoon with a jagged spear tip.

Lady Siyu bolted for Rynn. Shit, he’d never get out of the way in time.

He waited until she’d almost reached him. “Owl, catch,” he said and launched the harpoon—at me.

What did he expect? That I was going to catch it midair? Shit, that’s exactly what he had in mind . . . I scrambled back, as fast as my rib let me. The jagged spear tip lodged itself inches from my feet. I swore and dove for it. I’d have to have a long talk with Rynn about how he passed humans weapons.

Seeing this, Lady Siyu one-eighty’d and hurtled back towards me,
fangs bared, like she was at the center of some sick and twisted version of monkey in the middle.

Well, I wasn’t about to throw it back. I tucked it under my arm and hoped Lady Siyu was too enraged to notice.

I don’t know if it was because Lady Siyu was furious or didn’t think much of humans in the first place, but she didn’t slow down.

Fine by me. I fixed my grip on the harpoon shaft.

“You know what, Lady Siyu?” I said. She snarled. Ten feet away, five feet away . . . now.

I raised the harpoon as she glided the last few feet towards me and extended her torso, teeth bared. “Life’s a real bitch, and so am I,” I said.

Shock, or the closest thing I’d ever seen to it on her face, registered as she impaled herself on the harpoon. I skidded back against the floor with the impact but held on. Lady Siyu grasped the tip with both red-clawed hands and shrieked.