Owl and the Japanese Circus (54 page)

Mr. Kurosawa.

I didn’t care if it was magic; I shoved past Rynn and really started working on the door. I had my lock pick kit out in two seconds flat.

“Turn around,” Rynn said.

“Not until I get this damned door open.”

“Now—”

“Will you just wait—” I thought the door was giving a little. The barrel was stuck and the smoke was killing me, but I swore I heard the click.

Rynn placed his hand on the top of my head and forced me to look back down the stairwell. “Because there’s a three-story red dragon behind us.”

At the bottom, peering up at us with narrowed red eyes, was a fifteen-foot-tall red dragon, reminiscent of the ones you’d see on old Japanese and Chinese paintings. I dropped my lock pick.

Mr. Kurosawa smiled. There were a lot of teeth—lots and lots of teeth.

Blackened lips curled up as out of his nose he blew white smoke that filled the stairwell with sulfur. He made a noise somewhere between a growl and a laugh.

He looked right at me with a large red eye, glowing in the firelight. “I smell thieves,” he said.

I hoped to hell one of the coins hadn’t lodged itself in my boot.

Saying we didn’t have a choice about returning downstairs was an understatement. Back on the casino floor, I helped Rynn along slowly, Captain hanging back a few feet with Nadya. The sprinklers were still going, bathing everything in a damp haze, but the fires were out.

Mr. Kurosawa watched us from the charred remains of the casino floor as we descended. He was an extremely large dragon, the head and neck offset not by a mane of hair but by things more like ribboned tendrils like you’d see on a deep-sea fish. They were a mix of red and gold, and offset the red and gold scales. Up close, I could see now that there were in fact pupils housed in the red eyes, gold in color and highly reflective. I also noted the ruined wall on the far side of the casino. Mr. Kurosawa was pissed enough at this point to forgo niceties like human-sized doors.

“Japanese red,” Nadya said under her breath, just loud enough that Rynn and I would hear.

“I know that,” I said. Japanese reds are known for treasure hoarding, but they’re also known for bad tempers and short attention spans
when it comes to humans. Those two personality traits did not work well in our favor.

Mr. Kurosawa lowered his head so he was eye to eye with us, so to speak, and I cringed, imagining what being shredded alive by razor-sharp teeth felt like. A quick glance around the room showed no sign of Oricho. At all.

Instead of opening his jaws to eat us in one bite, he started to shrink. The ribboned mane grew and turned from gold and red to black. It swathed the red scale hide in mad swirls, consuming the dragon completely. Out of the storm of black and red walked the Japanese businessman I’d grown to fear about thirty times over, complete with expensive black suit and Italian shoes.

“And to think I almost slept through the entire show,” he said.

He stopped just short of me and held out his hand, an unpleasant smile on his face. Every time I had the pleasure of meeting him, I liked the look on his face less and less.

“My scroll, if you please,” he said.

I’d forgotten about that little detail. I fumbled it out of the inside of my jacket, almost dropping it as I handed it over.

He turned it over and raised an eyebrow at me. The scroll was wet and covered in my sooty fingerprints.

I cleared my throat. “Those will wipe clean off, and it dries better than you’d think. We put it over a heater last time—oomph.” I glared at Rynn and then Nadya. Both of them had jabbed me in the side at the same time. Well, so much for making small talk with the dragon.

Mr. Kurosawa watched me, his eyes glittering under the sprinklers and light. I don’t think he had any trouble reading through my façade of confidence. I was quaking in my proverbial boots, and he knew it. Though even I had to admit that I was doing a damn good job of not fidgeting.

Not taking his eyes off me for a second, his face an unreadable mask of geniality, Mr. Kurosawa snapped his fingers. From the ruined
arcade of slot machines I heard the unmistakable heels clicking against the soot-covered, ruined, wet floor.

Lady Siyu was back in her business suit and dragging a scarred and burned Oricho. Well, the dragon hadn’t eaten him, but knowing these two, I didn’t think that was a good sign.

“Look, Mr. Kurosawa, there has been a huge misunderstanding—” I started.

Oricho lifted his head and straightened the charred sleeves on his ruined shirt. “No misunderstanding, Owl. Mr. Kurosawa is apprised of the situation.”

Mr. Kurosawa’s lip turned up, exposing a residual fang. He lingered on me a moment before turning towards Oricho. “And here I thought I had won myself a loyal kami, sworn to my service. All this time I had an onryo in hiding, waiting and plotting to kill me. Well played, Oricho.” He glanced over at the ruined slot machines. “Though your warriors are free, you have failed to avenge them.”

I stood there and waited for Oricho to throw the rest of us under the bus. Blame us, blame Marie, blame Lady Siyu for Christ’s sake. I’d almost consider backing him if he said Lady Siyu was behind it—especially the way she was looking at me . . .

“Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu are aware that I acted alone, and that you and your associates were as much victims of my plot as they,” Oricho said, looking at both Lady Siyu and Mr. Kurosawa evenly.

Mr. Kurosawa turned to me. “Yes. Much to my surprise, little thief, you have kept your end of the bargain.” The main door swung open. “You three are free to go.”

I waited. There had to be something more to this. No argument, no double-crossing—they were letting us walk out alive?

“No catches. The vampires will leave you alone and you are free to go, with payment we agreed upon.”

I turned to go, but I couldn’t leave without knowing. “What are you going to do with Oricho?” I asked.

Mr. Kurosawa frowned, at the end of his patience for humans. His
eyes glinted as he glanced at the slot machines. “I do not take betrayal lightly.”

I stood there and exchanged looks with Rynn and Nadya. I didn’t like this one bit. Mr. Kurosawa had the scroll; what was the point of torturing Oricho to death?

“You’ve won,” I said.

“Don’t worry, little thief. I intend to give him a sporting chance.”

The way Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu were circling Oricho like a pair of sharks, I doubted that very much.

Oricho removed what was left of his jacket and, as if sensing my reluctance to leave, said, “I appreciate the sentiment, but I am ready to accept the consequences. My warriors are now at peace.” A smile crossed his face. “The same thing cannot be said for Mr. Kurosawa’s treasure room.”

Great, now Oricho gets a sense of humor.

Don’t get me wrong, Oricho wasn’t a good guy. The skin walker, Marie, almost being burned alive—all of this would be giving me nightmares for a long, long time. But he wasn’t exactly evil either. His methods were nuts, and I think he took a step off the deep end a few hundred years ago, but it’s not like he was out to kill people for kicks. Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu, on the other hand . . . well, let’s just say I got the distinct impression they’d enjoy punishing Oricho, not to mention us if we didn’t hightail it out of there . . . Goddamn it, there was no right or wrong here. Just a lot of very angry monsters who’d had a few centuries to stew.

“This whole thing sucks,” I said to Nadya and Rynn.

After a nod from Mr. Kurosawa, Lady Siyu broke off and sashayed towards us. “Leave now,” she said, and flashed me her fangs. “If I have to throw you out of our casino, odds are not good you will survive.”

“Fine, we’re going,” Rynn said, turning both of us around. “Owl, there’s nothing we can do. I wish it were different, but it’s within Mr. Kurosawa’s rights. I’m sorry, I’m not happy about it either. Oricho’s been a good friend—”

“Even though he tried to kill you?” I said, surprised, to say the least. Oricho hadn’t planned on killing us, but Rynn? He’d been a calculated casualty.

He shook his head and looked back. “I’ve known him a long time. A few hundred years with his guilt, and maybe I’d be pushed to a breaking point as well.”

We’d won. We should have been celebrating. So why did I feel so sick to my stomach?

I stopped in my tracks and grabbed Rynn’s sleeve. I knew damn well why I felt sick to my stomach; I was better than this. Yeah, my conscience had gotten me thrown out of the university, but I was the one who had to live with it.

I stopped and turned to face Lady Siyu and Mr. Kurosawa.

“Alix, what are you doing?” Nadya said.

“Something really, really stupid,” I said. But it was worth it if I could walk out of this without the guilt. I raised my voice to address Mr. Kurosawa. “What can we do?” I said.

Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu turned their gazes on me, not even making a pretense this time at geniality. I was interrupting their dinner.

Rynn grabbed my arm. “This isn’t your fight. Oricho knew what he was getting into when he concocted this plan.”

I ignored him. “There has to be something, Mr. Kurosawa,” I hissed. “What? What would be worth more than the satisfaction of killing Oricho?”

Lady Siyu looked as if she wanted to flay me alive, but Mr. Kurosawa eyed me with an even, thoughtful expression. “Not even you have enough treasure stashed away to buy Oricho’s life from me,” he said.

I nodded and turned back towards the door. I’d tried. I’d failed, but I could sleep at night with that.

“But you might be able to steal enough.”

I turned back. Mr. Kurosawa’s murderous stare had turned
thoughtful. “I’m branching out into antiquities,” he added. “And I’m in the market for an acquisitions and appraisals agent. Interested?”

It took me a second to realize what he was proposing. “You want me to find more treasure for your hoard?” I said.

“What you humans would call an employee/employer arrangement. A three-year contract,” he continued as I balked. “I pass jobs your way, and you fetch the items. Why, I’ll even allow you to pursue other projects on your own time. Think of it as a mutually beneficial agreement.”

I highly doubted there was anything mutually beneficial about it.

“Owl—” Rynn tried, but Lady Siyu silenced him with a hiss.

“I agree to work for you and you’ll what? Just let Oricho go?”

“No, but as a sign of good faith, I’d be obliged to give him a running start. He might even live.”

I ran it over in my head. It was the only chance Oricho would get.

“Seventy/thirty,” I said. “And you pay the expenses.”

“Sixty/forty, and that’s me being very generous,” he said. The teeth were back, and I took that as “negotiations are over.”

“If he gets out?” I asked, desperately trying to think my way out of any loopholes.

“Then Oricho is free to try and kill us another day.”

“And what about her?” I said, nodding at Lady Siyu.

She smiled. “I’ll kill him if I ever see him again.”

Considering the position I was in, that was probably the best I could do.

I looked at Oricho, who had a frown on his ruined face. “You have no obligation to indenture yourself to their service,” he said.

“Oh, it’s a contract. Three years, and I plan to make one hell of a profit out if it.”

Not to mention I’d be able to hide from the IAA for the rest of my life. Make no doubt about it, this last week’s series of disasters put me well back on their radar. The difference was in three years I could afford to hide without having to steal antiquities. Ever again . . . Did I mention the money?

He bowed his head.

“And for the record, Oricho, if you make it out of here alive, I never want to see you,
ever
again,” I said, and turned back to Mr. Kurosawa. “We have a deal,” I continued, as Rynn drew in a sharp breath beside me.

Mr. Kurosawa laughed. “Lady Siyu will be in touch.”

All I wanted to do was get the hell out. I turned to leave, Nadya, Rynn, and Captain close on my heels. “And consider me on vacation for the next month,” I told him.

We were almost out the doors when Oricho called my name. I made the mistake of glancing back in time to see him darting through what was left of the casino. “I owe you a debt and a life. I always repay them.”

I kept walking. Why did Oricho have to be the bad guy? Or maybe just the bad guy who lost? No . . . Killing Mr. Kurosawa was one thing, killing Rynn and dragging a damaged, hapless vampire like Marie into it . . . besides, I’d made my bet with the dragon. For now.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Nadya said.

I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

We got the hell out of there. With the firefighters and patrons roaming around the main floor, no one paid us any mind. I thought about leaving without my computer—I was this close to doing it but decided to grab what I could.

I don’t think I’ve ever driven the Winnebago that fast before in my life; even Rynn opted to sleep in the back instead of watching me drive.

Maybe hanging around me is a death sentence. I really seem to attract trouble.