Owl and the Japanese Circus (6 page)

Tokyo is possibly my favorite city in the world. It never shuts down, and Captain and I can sleep in a locked cubbyhole with only one entrance if need be. More importantly, the vampires in Tokyo have nothing to do with vampires in the rest of the world.

“Miss Owl?”

I looked up from my file as the flight attendant offered me a tray with a mixed array of orange and bubbling flutes.

“Would you like a champagne or orange juice for takeoff?” she said.

And this is why I fly first class. Well, that and the legroom . . . and I can actually get out of my seat to go to the washroom. The waiting lounges are nicer too.

“Thanks,” I said with what I hoped passed for a charming smile as I took one of each.

She didn’t seem to mind, but she did politely glance down at Captain’s carrier. The other reason I fly first class: they let us bring our pets on the plane.

“Oh, he’s fine in there. Won’t make a noise. Promise,” I said, and offered her my best charming smile. Personally I think it sucks—and Nadya seems to agree—but the designer clothes and the fact that I still look like I’m in my early twenties buy me a lot of leeway.

The flight attendant moved on to the next passenger, and I downed my orange juice and opened up the file on Sebastian Collard that Lady Siyu had delivered before I’d caught my cab. The cab ride from anywhere on the Vegas strip to the airport is short, so I’d only had a chance to flip through the first few pages. What I’d seen had worried me enough that I’d been flipping through it ever since.

I can’t sleep on planes. Never could. So I usually block time for naps before and after and use the flight itself for research and planning.

On the first page alone there was enough to make me very happy I was taking Captain to Japan with me.

Up until six months ago, Sebastian Collard had been a run-of-the-mill antiques dealer in Florida, specializing in colonial and precolonial pieces from the Caribbean. Once that registered, I knew where I’d seen the name. Someone from his shop had contacted me about a year ago and offered me money to fetch a piece from Cuba. It had been right around my run-in with the Paris boys, and I’d needed cash, badly. ATMs and banks in general had stopped being my friend by that point.

Anyway, I’d backed out of the job last minute and had stopped returning emails when local authorities had started investigating Sebastian’s company on forgeries. Talk about small world.

However, the man in the mug shot was a far cry from the vampire junkie mess who’d pointed a gun at me. He’d been a respectable . . . well, looking at least . . . businessman. No family, no real friends. After the forgery charges, the shop had closed and he’d vanished from the real world.

Yeah, hanging out with vampires will do that to you.

The more I looked through his earlier business records, a sinking suspicion started to needle me.

People who collect antiques love second-opinion appraisals. Unless Sebastian had been some kind of superpowered master forger, there’s no way he could have stayed in business for almost ten years with the steady volume of high-end pieces he’d been moving. It just doesn’t happen. Someone would have stumbled onto the forgeries years ago and he’d have been demoted to selling 1960s kitsch. It was starting to look more like an expensive frame job than a forgery bust.

What did I say about vampires hitting you where it hurts?

Whereas Lady Siyu had been able to find all sorts of information on Sebastian, Sabine remained an enigma. Sebastian had checked into the Paradise hotel—a lower-end resort for gambling habits and families on tight budgets—with a young woman, but the trail ended there. I hadn’t managed to find anything online either in reference to a vampire named Sabine. I’d have to wait for Lady Siyu to call with more information once she contacted the Paris boys to find out if this Sabine was one of theirs. I wasn’t holding my breath. I locked the folder back up in my satchel. No sense obsessing over it until I had something better to go on, and there’d be plenty of time for that once I landed in Tokyo.

Captain gave a
mrowl
. The blond businesswoman sitting across the aisle shot me a dirty look, then flicked her magazine open.

I have this theory that there’s a black so deep and bottomless only lawyers dare wear it. I call it lawyer black. They must ask for it by name when ordering suits. The blonde was dressed head to toe in it. I stuck my tongue out and mentally patted myself on the back for the look of pure shock on the woman’s face. The things I get away with wearing Chanel.

“Come on,” I said to Captain, and held out his harness. He crawled in with minor complaints, and I walked him up the aisle to the bathroom. Those videos that claim they can toilet train your cat? Totally true.

The two Japanese Harajuku teens sitting near the front ooohed
and ahhed over Captain and his red harness. Captain rolled over for them, sopping up the attention. It made up for the cat-hating lawyer.

Once I had Captain back to our seat, I checked the time. Two hours left until landing. I rested my head against the back of the seat. What I really needed now was to plan my steps for when I got off the plane, which meant going over my dig notes and the few lines I’d gleaned from the Japanese thesis on the Bali site. I pulled my laptop out and waved the flight attendant over.

“Do you by any chance have a couple of Coronas back there?” I said.

Captain and I breezed through customs. Best ten grand I ever spent was bribing a doctor to prescribe me an “assistant pet” to deal with my “debilitating anxiety and panic disorder.” I think they have padded rooms and an assortment of colorful pills set aside for people who tell their therapists they need an assistant cat to help them evade vampires. Ten grand it is, thank you very much.

I breezed past the baggage carousel and through the exit, and hightailed it to the nearest washroom. I had everything I needed in my oversized Chanel purse. As a general rule I try to never check luggage. Lucky for me the washroom was empty. I picked the farthest stall from the entrance. No sooner had I closed the stall door than Captain started to complain he had to go, so I let him out of the carrier while I changed.

I pulled my Chanel jacket off, reluctantly I might add, and replaced it with a hooded Ralph Lauren canvas jacket I’d picked up along with a few other things on my shopping spree. Next were the high-heeled boots, which I replaced with a pair of flat leather riding boots. I zipped the boots up over the Chanel jeans and checked that the bottom of the jacket hung long enough to hide the label. I packed the clothes and purse into a canvas Ralph Lauren backpack I’d rolled up and hidden
in the bottom of the oversized purse. Last but not least, I wiped off my eyeliner and red lipstick, replaced them with sporty bronzer, undid the wraparound French braids, and beachified my hair.

Once I was satisfied I looked like your run-of-the-mill, respectably fashionable university student, I pulled up the canvas hood, popped Captain back in his carrier, and headed for the exit. Why all the trouble? People can ask drivers where the girl in the expensive Chanel jacket and designer purse was dropped off, and the driver’ll probably remember and be more than happy to tell said person for very little cash. The boho student with the canvas backpack hopping on the train? Who cares.

I navigated the crowded platform until I located the train that would take me to the Shiyuba district, where Nadya lived. Not until I was sitting on the train and relatively sure no one had followed me did I turn my cell phone back on.

Two messages blinked into existence on my screen; one from Oricho and one from Nadya. I checked my email—yeah, international data plans—and still nothing from Lady Siyu yet (or Dragon Lady, as I referred to her in my phone address book, where she’d never see it). I checked Oricho’s message first. All he said was that it was important, and to call him. Shit. Why bother leaving a message if you don’t leave any details? Why not just text? Nadya’s message was a more efficient use of long distance; she was going to be at the club late, so I was to just meet her there.

I put my Bluetooth earbud in and called Oricho. He answered on the first ring.

“Oricho? It’s Owl—please don’t tell me a pack of vampires are hot on my tail. If they are, so help me—”

“Lady Siyu has successfully contacted the Paris Vampire Contingency on Mr. Kurosawa’s behalf and requested that I contact you with the information,” he said.

Well, it wasn’t completely bad news. “Why the hell didn’t she just call me herself?”

Oricho paused for a moment. “Lady Siyu does not deal well with inefficient phone conversations,” he said carefully.

“Oh, you got to be kidding me,” I said, just as the train pulled up to the next station. I checked the name printed in big black letters on the tile wall through the window; still six more to go. “Fine, well, what information did she get on Sabine?”

Another pause. Not good.

“She said they were less than forthcoming with any relevant information.”

“That’s it? I thought you guys could make them talk?”

“Though they were evasive throughout the entire conversation—eventually falling on the fail-safe that they couldn’t possibly keep track of every vampire in Paris—Lady Siyu is convinced they were attempting to obtain as much information from her as she was from them.”

A chill went down my spine. Sabine was independent. “Fuck,” I said, drawing a few sideways glances. I could picture Oricho arching an eyebrow. For someone with so many visible tattoos, he sure as hell was prim and proper. “I don’t think I can stress how really not good this is.”

“I’ve already arranged—”

“No, you don’t understand. If she’s not with the Paris vampire pack—” I cupped my hand around my cell as a couple of other passengers glanced over at me. I lowered my voice. “If she’s not with them, then that means she’s independent.”

“We did not agree to negotiate any other truces with other parties you’ve entered into disagreement with. That would be a separate agreement.”

That kind of tunnel thinking pissed me off, and right when I’d started not hating Oricho. “You soooo aren’t getting it. I have no outstanding disagreements with any other parties. The Paris boys were it.” Well, and Egypt . . . and an assortment of antiquities departments spread over the world, but they’ve got no idea who I am. I took a deep
breath. Where to start explaining? Damn, this is why I work alone and under the radar.

“OK, Sabine is a vampire who a
major
vampire organization wants info about. I’d never even heard of her until her vampire flunkie antiquities specialist showed up in your casino and accosted me.
Right
after I agreed to retrieve the egg scroll—to
try
to retrieve the scroll contents,” I corrected myself before continuing. “I don’t think this Sabine cares two tail feathers about me. I think you’ve got another tomb raider after the scroll that was supposed to be in that egg, who happens to be a vampire.”

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I’ll bet Sebastian hadn’t had any plans to shoot me. He’d probably been there to grab my notes and deliver me to Sabine. The fact that the Paris boys have been looking for me was just a convenient cover and the obvious conclusion we would jump to.

I was still pissed off, so I took the time to slide another jab in . . . while I was far away from Vegas. “
And
since we’re talking about what we agreed to,
I
agreed to try and retrieve the scroll for Mr. Kurosawa in exchange for getting rid of my vampire problem. Nowhere in that agreement does it say I need to deal with
your
vampire problems.” Geez, when I say it like that, it sounds like vampires are some kind of infestation. I wonder if there’s some kind of high-tech vampire exterminator? I’ve never found one, but I’ve seen stranger. I was about to suggest it to Oricho, when he jumped back into the conversation.

“How certain are you of this assessment?”

I thought about it for a second. My reputation rests on transparency, after all. “Let’s just say if I had to bet my life on motivation, that would be it.”

There was another measured pause on Oricho’s end. I didn’t blame him. If I found out a vampire was messing around with a business transaction . . . I imagine it’s a bit like finding out from a maid that the hotel is infested with bedbugs.

“I will appraise my contact in Japan of our new situation and brief Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu of your assessment.”

A lot of good that was going to do me. She probably just thought I’d pissed off another vampire. “Fine, do that. Just don’t deal with it too late. Otherwise you’re going to need another antiquities specialist—”

“In the future I will refrain from assumptions concerning the transparency of your business dealings. I recommend you do the same, and do try to be careful.” And with that Oricho hung up.

I held the phone out for a moment. Damn, that had almost been an apology. I checked the name of the upcoming stop: Harajuku Station. My stop. I tossed my phone back in my pocket and grabbed Captain’s carrier, ready to push through the crowds waiting to get in. The door to the train slid open and Captain growled and crammed himself up against the carrier’s mesh. I froze. The faint rotting lily of the valley hit me. I held my breath.