16

Pirates

Oh sweet Jesus, why does everything hurt?

Fun observation: coming to with a killer headache and my hands tied behind my back isn’t as much a shock as it used to be . . . though as I tried pulling my cramped legs in, I realized they were tied together as well.

Hunh. That was new. Come to think of it, so was the cage.

Why is it I always get knocked out anyways? Gun butt to the head this time, too, if I remembered correctly . . .

I tried to shift my legs into a more comfortable position and found two things; first, my ribs hurt like a son of a bitch. On the bright side, the foggy memory of someone landing a kick to my stomach hadn’t been a figment of my imagination.

The second thing I noted though was less expected; my legs were tied real tight, pins-and-needles-inducing tight. And I wasn’t all by my lonesome. I was tied back to back with someone else stuck in the cage, and in my opinion done with an excess amount of rope.

“Pssst, Nadya?” I whispered, hazarding a guess.

“Good, you are awake finally,” she said, and turned her head so she could see me out of the corner of her eye.

“I think someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure we didn’t up and try to walk out of here,” I said.

This time she replied in a string of Russian insults I don’t feel like translating or repeating right now. I don’t shy away from cursing, but even I have my limits.

The fact that Nadya hadn’t made any progress on her own told me someone really had gone to a lot of trouble. I filed that away in the “interesting” category.

“I don’t know about you, Alix, but I’m about ready to go above and beyond their expectations.”

“Oh I’ve well and already reached that point,” I said, and started scanning my immediate surroundings.

We were in a tent, the green khaki, military-grade kind, built to house a lot of equipment for short periods of time then get packed right back up. As far as its contents went, if it wasn’t for the small issue of being tied up in a cage, I’d be singing happy birthday to me. To quote World Quest, the place was a treasure whore’s dream. These guys had enough antiquities loot to rival the Smithsonian.

Captain, Rynn, and Carpe, however, were nowhere to be seen—at least not in my periphery.

“What happened to everyone else?” I asked.

“They found Rynn ahead of us, but I haven’t seen him since the truck. I don’t know what happened to Captain; he ran back into the temple after you tripped.”

I nodded, more for myself than Nadya. I was happy they hadn’t grabbed Captain. Him I could go back for later . . .

“The elf got away,” Nadya added derisively.

So much for sticking around to help. “Somehow Carpe saving his own skin doesn’t surprise me,” I said, though at least I had the satisfaction of knowing he didn’t have his book—the pirates did.

Speaking of which . . . I was about to ask Nadya if she’d had a chance to talk to Rynn and come up with a tentative game plan, but I didn’t get the chance, courtesy of muffled voices and footsteps outside the tent.

“Someone’s coming,” Nadya said.

“Look, just follow my lead,” I said.

Nadya snorted. “You are feverish and delusional. We follow my lead.”

“Yeah, but for better or worse, I have more experience dealing with people who tie me up and threaten to kill me. We’re using my methods.”

She struggled in order to see me. “Your methods involve pissing ­people off more than they already are.”

“It works, doesn’t it? And keeping them happy is a moot point. They already know who we are—or did you forget the ropes and cage?”

I’m sure she would have kept the argument going, but the voices outside the tent became voices inside it.

Showtime.

I let out a loud whistle. “Hey, Nadya, there’s more loot in here than the British Museum—how many trucks do you figure we need?”

She swore and did her best to elbow me. It might have packed a punch considering the condition of my rib, but she couldn’t get much of a windup.

Louder this time I added, “I mean, look at all this stuff. I think those might actually be terra-cotta warriors over there. Think we could get a few out without them knowing?” I wasn’t lying about that one either. There was one standing in front of half-unpacked cargo crates. Curse aside, I could spend a week cataloguing this stuff . . .

The footsteps picked up the pace.

“They are going to shoot you,” Nadya whispered.

“No, they’re not,” I whispered back. “If they were, they’d have done it already.” Yet another sentence I should not be that comfortable saying. For the benefit of whoever was making their way over, I added, “And aren’t you just a little bit curious why they have us so trussed up?”

“Quiet in there,” said one of the new players to the party. I couldn’t see him, but his voice alone told me plenty. An unfamiliar, soft-accented English, mixed with a quick pronunciation and the ease with which the phrase rolled out, told me he was no stranger to the language. That was good. The more everyone understands each other, the less trigger-happy they are. The high pitch hinted at something else as well.

“Hey, great, you speak English. Would you believe we were on a hike and got lost in that cave? I know, crazy American tourists—”

“I said be quiet,” the male voice said, with more emphasis this time. He rounded the cage, and I got my first look at one of our captors.

If I hadn’t been tied up in a cage, I’d have felt bad for the kid—and he was a kid. Even if the voice hadn’t given it away, his face did. He was tall for his age, but if he was a day over twelve, I was a dancing bear.

I made a point of looking him in the eye—something I’d learned when bartering with vampires. Funny thing about a kid pirate, they don’t have the eyes of a kid anymore.

Or maybe that was the fever and hallucinations hitting me again.

Regardless, the rifle slung over his shoulder didn’t escape my notice; neither did the way he played with the strap and butt.

Despite the English, I added trigger-happy back into the equation and decided to forgo the dumb tourist routine. “Why are we here?” I asked.

The kid frowned at me. “I told you. No speaking.”

I made a point of not breaking eye contact even though the kid was glaring at me. Harder to shoot someone while you’re looking them in the eye—mechanically, not ethically. Like I said, jaded . . . “Look, all I’m asking, kid, is why we’re here. I’m not asking you to let me out—” His frown deepened, so I added, “Ransoming tourists? Figure we have money on us? Just curious.”

“You are to stop speaking now, or I will make you.”

“Oh come on, you’ve already got us tied up in a cage. A little overkill, isn’t it? What’s the harm in telling us—”

The kid swung the gun off his shoulder and rammed the tip into my side right about where my sore rib was. “OK, kid—you made your point, I’ll shut up.”

“Do not call me a child. I am the one with the gun, and I am the one in charge. You will do what I say,” he said, and pointed a finger at his chest. It was the kind of aggression you get from a kitten or puppy when it’s done playing—a kitten with a loaded rifle and not afraid to use it, but still the uncomfortable analogy stands . . .

If I’d had my hands free, I would have lifted them in surrender. No sense risking another prod with a loaded gun from a twelve-year-old unhappy pirate. Instead, I said absolutely nothing, showing the kid that yes, he was in charge.

He waited, watching me before standing up and slowly walking around the cage, checking the lock and rope knots.

Oh very interesting.

I waited until the footsteps faded and the canvas of the tent once again muffled the retreating voices.

“How frequently does he come in?” I said to Nadya.

“Every thirty minutes or so. I’ve been counting—four times since we got here.”

So I’d been passed out for two hours or so.

Yeah, they definitely knew who we were—or who I was, at least. No way Somali pirates would go to all this trouble for two foreign girls. Which begged the question: who was pulling the strings?

“You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you,” she said.

“They wouldn’t bother tying us up if they were planning on killing us.” I probably should have added yet to that statement . . . if I was being completely honest.

“Note, I said shoot, not kill. The two can be mutually exclusive.”

“If he was going to hurt me, he’d have hit me with the butt of his gun. Someone told him not to.” I craned my neck around to see if I could get a better look at what was on Nadya’s side. I caught a glimpse of yet more crates and boxes piled high. They really had a hodgepodge of goods from just about every corner of the world. I was impressed in spite of my predicament. It takes a lot of effort to amass this many antiquities in one spot. “What else do we know besides they have no problem giving children guns?”

I felt Nadya shake her head. “Surprisingly little. I got the distinct impression on the way over here they were told to knock you out.”

“How’d they get Rynn?”

“We didn’t have a chance to speak. But I think it was deliberate. He only had two guns on him.”

Yeah, well Rynn had better know what he was doing with the pirates. Carpe’s whereabouts just worried me in general. I think the only place I trusted the elf was a few thousand miles away in front of a computer screen.

More muffled voices traveled from outside.

“How much do you want to bet the guy in charge is about to walk in now that I’m awake?”

I felt Nadya shrug. “Fifty-fifty they send someone lower down the ladder. Just in case we managed to get out.”

“You’re on.”

Sure enough, the voices cleared as the tent flap opened.

“Two?” I asked, guessing from the number of distinct voices I thought I’d heard.

“No, three—”

“Why, hello, my guests. My little brother tells me you are both awake now,” one of the men said, followed by an enthusiastic clap.

Definitely an adult, but not the deep, menacing, testosterone-fueled voice of the kind of tyrant I’d associate with running a band of pirates. It was more what I’d expect in a courtroom—or a business merger—or maybe even politics. If I had to guess, I’d bet on it being the same man who’d greeted us outside the temple, the same one claiming to be me.

When something surprises you, sometimes the best course of action is to hold your tongue until you have a better grip on your surroundings. I decided to wait until I got a better look at him.

Yes, I’m capable of rational thought.

The three men stepped around to my side of the cage. The first two looked like pirates—tall, muscular, large men decorated with guns and knives and a worn mismatch of fatigues. It was the third man who drew my attention. A foot or so shorter than his companions and less muscular, he was in fact the same one who had greeted us, except now he was dressed in a crisp, short-sleeved khaki shirt with matching shorts—­expensive, if my tutelage with Nadya was any help. Whereas the other two pirates wore stoic expressions, on this man’s face was what could best be described as a politician’s smile. In fact, if it weren’t for my current predicament, I’d guess businessman on safari over pirate any day.

“My name is Odawaa Siad Barre, and I am the one in charge.” He raised his hand to point behind him. “These behind me are my men and will shoot you if you do something I do not like.” The smile didn’t falter as he added, “Do we understand each other?”

The tingling down the back of my neck rose four notches on the Spidey scale. Someone like this didn’t become king of the pirates because they threatened and intimidated people. That was the job of the two in back. Someone like Odawaa rose to power through his wits.

“Crystal,” I said.

Apparently Odawaa liked that answer. He crouched down to the dirt floor, arranging himself carefully and deliberately into a cross-legged position. It was a message; he didn’t need to sit above me to know he had the upper hand.

It’s the really dangerous ones who know posturing is for those who need to overcompensate.

“That is very good. Misunderstandings are unpleasant and unfortunately lead to people losing their fingers.”

Odawaa’s muscle stood a few paces behind, scowling. I didn’t miss their hands on the guns. Or the assortment of knives.

“Imagine my surprise earlier this evening when I and my men came across two American women rummaging around old unmarked ruins,” he said, and tsked. “Very dangerous for tourists this far south.”

Now who was wasting time pretending . . . “Yeah, that’s us. Just a couple of tourists running around unmarked dig sites in the middle of the night. What do you want?”

Odawaa smiled, but this time it wasn’t friendly. “At first I thought I would ransom you back to your government. Two lone women who travel with an armed guard must be worth something.” He rubbed his fingertips together, the universal sign for money.

He thought Rynn was a bodyguard and didn’t seem to know about Carpe—or my cat. That was good.

“But then, I thought to myself, What are two young women doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” He feigned surprise. “I thought, Perhaps they are archaeologists with the IAA. I had better check, I know how particular they can be. I thought, I will ask my good friend.” He pulled out a cell phone and turned the screen around so I could see the picture. It was me—unconscious, with my mouth open and drooling.

“Imagine how much more surprised I was after sending this picture to find I was playing host to the famed thief Owl.”

Yeah, I couldn’t quite hide my own expression at that statement. I lifted my bound wrists as far as I could. “I think our cultures have very differing definitions of ‘host.’ ”

Odawaa’s smile widened. “I was told to expect a strange sense of humor. Though I believe it is me who does the laughing. We are—how would you say?—great admirers of your work. Imitation is the best form of flattery, no?”

Strange didn’t begin to cover this. I nodded at the crates and boxes surrounding us. “A bit upscale for Somali pirates, isn’t this?”

Odawaa’s smile and businesslike swagger didn’t drop, not for a second, as he shrugged. “Governments get very upset when we steal ships, and it’s no secret that the good ships carry more guns now as well. I find that they are much less concerned about vanishing antiquities, and there are no guns. It is a very lucrative business, as I believe you are already aware.”

Great—not only were pirates getting involved in the antiquities trade but they were also impersonating me to do it. Fantastic.

“Look, Odawaa, neither of us are idiots.” I hoped, though according to Rynn and Nadya, my omission from that club was tentative at best. “My head is killing me and I’m kind of on a time line here. What do you want?”

He gestured towards me. “Perhaps I simply wanted to see the ­legend—and my competition.”

I shook my head. “No. You’d just shoot me. It’d be easier and less messy. What do you want?” I said, and gave the question more emphasis.

He turned to his men and tsked. One of them handed him a tablet and a large-grid notebook, the kind archaeologists use to map locations and track dig items.

“Two of my men are dead and three more are dying,” Odawaa said. “All the same symptoms, all the same time, but do you want to know what the truly interesting thing is? They were on different continents. Two in Syria, one in my beloved home of Somalia, and two in Los Angeles, California. Strange coincidence, no?”

A familiar chill ran up my spine. When I didn’t say anything, he continued, “I asked myself, Odawaa, what did these men have in common? Health? No. Women? More possible but also no. Something they ate? But how could they have shared food on different sides of the world?”

He lowered his head like one of the large predators the African continent is famous for. “The only thing these men had in common was that all handled the artifacts from the IAA’s city in Syria. I want to know why.” He turned the tablet around. I recognized an article I’d seen in L.A. only a few days before, though it seemed much longer. It was an update on the two foreign undocumented workers who had fallen ill and been quarantined. Both were now dead, and the health authorities were still investigating and warning people to report in to a hospital if experiencing flulike symptoms.

Yeah, that chilled feeling only got worse. I swallowed my nerves. “So? Ask your friend at the IAA. You know damn well I haven’t set foot in the city.”

Odawaa grinned and laughed, making a show of slapping his legs and gesturing to his men as if we were sharing in a great joke. “You know, I did just that. They say it is merely coincidence. Many viruses float around in Africa, which is true.” He dropped all pretence of friendliness. “But they kill more than five men. I want to know what you know of this disease that kills like a poison and the IAA need to lie about.”

So many ways to answer that question . . . “Do you believe in curses, Mr. Barre?” I asked.

He smiled. “ ‘Mr. Barre’—I think I like that—Owl. Do I believe in curses?” He nodded at the men standing behind him, still holding their guns. “You see my men? They only speak a few words of English and believe in all manner of things, from curses to demons.” To prove his point, he asked them a question in what I guessed was Somali. Both men’s hands left the hilts of their guns, and they made the sign of the cross.

Odawaa turned back to me. “You see? Very superstitious. Me? Before my country imploded and this line of work found me, I studied tropical diseases in London, of all places. They may not know better, but you and I? We do.”

“No offense, but how the hell does a doctor end up king of the pirates?” I said.

He smiled. “At the risk of quoting old children’s tales, I decided I’d rather be the thing that goes bump in the night than the one waiting to be eaten, and the only things that go bump in the night in Somalia are the pirates, so here I am. Who knew I would have such a talent for this line of work?”

The universe in its unholy wrath rains down all sorts of surprises on the unsuspecting . . . as much as I was pissed Odawaa and his crew were using me as their business model, I’m not the one who could judge him for joining the side with all the guns after the government collapsed.

I also didn’t want to spend an extended period of time with an ex-MD who’d crawled the ranks to Head Somali Pirate . . .

“Now, I tell you all this because my contact believes I am just another superstitious thug of a pirate. I ask you again, what do you know of this hemorrhagic fever that lives in the old caverns and acts like a poison? What disease is this that hides on old stone and drowns its victims in their own blood?”

Hemorrhagic fever. That was bad, and also not what the previous teams/victims had called it in their dig notes . . . then again, they hadn’t had a doctor on team.

Bigger problem; how the hell did I explain to someone who knew better than to believe in supernatural monsters and curses that what his men were experiencing was a supernatural curse?

“I am not accustomed to waiting for answers, Owl,” Odawaa said, and I saw the men behind him shift.

Failing to tell him anything would be a bad idea—he knew his diseases, and he knew damn well the curse was linked to the dig site—and no amount of lying would get me around that. So I’d just have to lie around the truth . . .

Besides, telling the pirate his contact had screwed him over was just another way to screw them over—and maybe find out who the hell was in charge. Win-win.

“OK, you’re right. There is a disease in the Syrian temple,” I said, choosing my words with care as I licked the sweat off my lips. “It’s why the dig site is supposed to be closed. The artifacts they had you remove were probably contaminated—which I’m guessing is why they hired a bunch of uneducated pirates to handle it for them.” That would also have given whoever in the IAA orchestrated this fiasco the time and window to get themselves an airtight alibi. If I were an evil archaeologist trying to release dangerous artifacts into the world at large, that’s what I’d do . . .

“Am I right?” I asked. “They made your men go inside and get the artifacts for them, while they stayed safe outside?”

Odawaa leaned towards the cage. He spat out the words, “What kind of disease?”

The first rule of lying convincingly is to never divulge details you don’t understand—especially to someone who knows a hell of a lot more than you do. “Ah, yeah, not so big on the details—”

“It’s a bacterium,” Nadya said, interrupting what I’m sure would have been a plane crash of a lie. “Long living, not sure what species, forms cysts around itself, able to survive years like that—apparently hundreds of years. Like Owl says, the dig was supposed to be closed off. We don’t know who authorized opening it up.”

Thank God one of us showed up to pathology class.

Odawaa considered what Nadya said, then nodded. “That would make the most sense . . .” He then looked back at me. “They knew about this, you say?”

“Oh yeah, they’ve got dig notes from as recently as thirty years back.” Though they sure as hell hadn’t used the words hemorrhagic fever . . . “Think of it this way, Mr. Barre: they wanted whatever was in that temple, and you and your pirates are a hell of a lot more expendable than their archaeologists.”

Odawaa said something to his companions in Somali and without another word to us stood up.

“Hey! We told you what you want to know.” Sort of—or the most believable version. “Your turn. What the hell do you plan on doing with us?”

He ignored us and headed for the tent exit. The stale smell of uncirculated air hit me, along with a shot of adrenaline. Not the kind of place I wanted to die a slow death in.

“Hey—if getting back at the IAA is what you want, let me out. They’ll really hate that.”

I heard his footsteps stop. “Oh I thought about handing you over to the IAA. That is certainly what my contact requested, though you’ve been useful to me, and I hate to waste a useful resource.”

He stepped back into view and motioned at the crates and already unpacked items stacked upon them. “All of these artifacts, much smaller and easier to negotiate than ships. More profit, less risk to me and my men. The problem was I never understood much about old relics. I was always better with diseases, broken bones.” He shrugged. “Cirro was our archaeologist who was in charge of making sure all these items were real enough. He spent three years studying in the United States and brought back many curious stories about the infamous Owl. A promising student who threw away her potential by falsifying research, then had no choice but to become a thief.”

Oh buddy, if you knew the half of it. As I suspected, an undergraduate had been behind the cursed items getting out. I’m sure someone owed me a beer for that. If and when we got out of here . . .

Odawaa frowned. “There was a medical student I knew, my classmate, ‘Johnny Boy’ we used to call him—fun fellow, well liked. He used to cheat on exams. At first it was every now and then, but he found he got ahead, and then it was a given he would cheat. Graduated too, became a well-known and respectable doctor. Do you know what you and Johnny Boy have in common?”

I felt Nadya tense behind me . . . “No,” I said, “and you talk too much.”

Odawaa’s smile was back. “Eventually the lies caught up with him. They always do.”

I snorted. “If bad things have a habit of catching up, I’d hate to see what the universe has in store for you.”

He shook his head and held open the tent flaps. “The world does not always catch up with bad people, that is its way. Only the ones who are so caught up in their own lies and half-truths they no longer know the difference. My archaeologist, Cirro, very sad. He died five days ago. I have no idea where any of these items go or what they are.” He whistled to the two guards, and they both hung back by our cage.

“If you think for one second I’m helping the guys who’ve been masquerading as me for the past month—”

“Not all people really believe we are the Owl,” Odawaa said. “Partly because the messenger, Hermes, would not be bribed, but mostly due to a strange practice you have of authenticating all of your merchandise. Very hard to replicate, Cirro told me, the mark of a very good archaeologist. But now with you here, we can have our items delivered by this Hermes and offer the authentic Owl experience.”

“You can keep on being my second-rate, cheap impression for all I care—hey!” I yelled as one of the guards kicked the cage near my face.

Odawaa laughed. “You know, I was very gifted in surgery. It has been a few years, but I believe my methods will convince you to cooperate. Chloroform only goes so far to dull the pain—hard to determine the doses with my current equipment. Of course, we need you in one piece. Not so with your friend and companion.”

“And I’ll bet you’ll let them walk free if I help?”

“Please, let us be honest with our barter. We both know none of you will be walking free. A quick death is better than torture, however.”

I swallowed. “First off, you don’t have a fraction of the equipment we’d need.”

He arched an eyebrow, driving a sick feeling into my stomach. “You misunderstand me. I do not need you to authenticate these, I need you to make it look like you have authenticated them.” His smile widened. “We are pirates, after all.” He whistled to his men, who approached the cage. “My men, Bhotaan and Odiye, will let you out and make sure you get to work. They speak no English, so they will not be able to answer any questions, and they have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. If you do not cooperate, they will shoot. Stray bullets get lodged in the strangest places. You will not want to watch me try to remove them from you or your friend.”

“You seriously expect—shit.” As if to prove the point, the second guard this time delivered a kick to the cage.

Odawaa turned his back on us. “You two can start with the items out on the crates,” he said, and then he was gone.

“Finally. I could not wait for him to shut up,” Nadya said.

“Well, there are two things we know now that we didn’t before,” I said as the first guard opened our cage.

“What’s that?”

“These pirates don’t have any idea what they’re involved in.” ­Furthermore, someone inside the IAA did.

A bunch of pirates selling off highly dangerous supernatural artifacts. Under less dire circumstances, I might think it comical. “I don’t know about you, Nadya, but I have no intention of being here when the supernaturals start showing up looking for their shit.” I also had a sinking suspicion Rynn’s imprisonment by the pirates was a temporary predicament.

“Ditto,” Nadya said.

The guards cut the rope, and I rubbed circulation back into my wrists and ankles. “In the meantime though, I’m game to rummage around the pirate treasure. Do some souvenir shopping?”

“Let me know where to sign up.”

And with that we started our survey of the epic loot.

If it wasn’t for the fact that these were pirates who were seriously screwing me over, I might feel sorry for them.

I picked up the Tibetan scroll—it was nicely preserved. Until these ass­holes had gotten hold of it, I’m sure someone had kept it locked up in an airtight room . . . probably in a Tibetan temple . . .

I held it up to the light sifting through a corner of the tent. Yup, definitely a spell scroll. “That makes four on my side,” I said to Nadya.

“And that’s only what’s out of the boxes,” she replied from inside the wooden crate she was crouched in.

I picked up a gold Buddha statue that was roughly the size of ­Captain. Again supposedly from Tibet—nice piece, hard to find; the Chinese made a point of destroying a lot of the Buddhist artifacts during the Cultural Revolution.

Nadya looked up from the crate. “Don’t tell me they got a hold of a real prayer statue?”

“Supposed to be.” I flipped it over and checked the bottom with a flashlight I’d found on the desk. There was a small divot in the gold—showing gray metal underneath. Gold leaf. “Would be a hell of a lot more impressed if it was real.”

“Another fake? How many does that make now?”

“Sixty-forty split in favor of the fakes. This one’s good though. They’ve got the tarnish and wear right on it. Might even be an old forgery from a hundred years or so ago.” And I was somehow supposed to create the paperwork saying it was real, when it took me less than a minute to figure out it was a fake?

“Make it look authentic . . . What do they think I am, magic?” I placed the statue into the largest and first of the three piles. The harmless fakes.

Initially we hadn’t planned on organizing the pirates’ treasure room. We’d planned on royally screwing things up and maybe pocketing a few things while we figured out a way out or Rynn caused a commotion—whichever came first. It was a decent—if random—amassment of antiquities.

But Odawaa hadn’t been kidding. His two men were definitely ­trigger-happy. They’d already put a bullet in one of the crates when we’d gotten too close to the tent flap. We’d been planning on bolting, but that was beside the point.

It was when we’d stumbled across the supernatural artifacts that we’d rethought our approach.

I picked up another item—a goblet with gold details and a handful of sapphires. I hit it with the infrared light; most supernaturals could see infrared. Lines of painted magic lit up. “Hey, Nadya—got another one. Ever heard of a magic Persian goblet?”

She stood up so she could see me. I held up the goblet for her inspection, and she frowned. “Is it covered with sapphires? And pass me the infrared laser.”

“Yes, around the rim,” I said, and tossed the penlight overhand.

She caught the laser and disappeared back inside the crate. “Twelfth century, Goblet of the Peri. There’s an incantation that makes the goblet cure all poison.”

Be more impressed if it turned liquid into wine . . . better yet, beer . . . I could use one about now. “And if you fuck it up?”

“If you fuck it up, the goblet poisons you. The Peri toed the line between angels and demons. They weren’t giving anything away for free.”

Right. Dangerous stuff pile it was. “That’s what, ten total?”

Nadya crawled back out of the crate. “Eleven. This one has a golem, pre-Christian, Jerusalem.”

Jesus Christ, where the hell were they finding all this stuff? “It’s a wonder they all aren’t dead yet,” I said.

Supernatural magic is designed for use by supernaturals only. Usually it’s written in blood or some other fluid of dubious origin spiked with magic. It’s also written in their languages—either the common tongue that just about everyone except the vampires spoke, or something species-­specific.

Humans trying to speak supernatural and invoke their magic almost always backfired in spectacular explosions and magic gone wild, though every few decades some IAA idiot in the supernatural department decided it was a good idea to have a go invoking a charm, something as harmless-looking as the Goblet of Peri. Of course, this time was going to be different. They knew where the last guy went wrong . . .

If they were lucky, they turned a half dozen people into rabbits or goats. If they were unlucky, a few buildings exploded . . . proving spectacularly why no one should ever try it again . . . which translated into roughly thirty years.

Nadya frowned at me. “Alix, you are not looking well.”

I wasn’t feeling well either. The chills and sweats had gotten more manageable, but I wasn’t convinced that was a good sign. My skin had grown clammy, and though I’d been doing my best to hide it, I was now soaked in sweat.

Worrying about Rynn wasn’t helping. Supernaturals are hard to kill, not invincible. It was a distinct possibility the pirates had incapacitated him and we’d have to save him.

I heard footsteps outside, and a moment later Odawaa stepped through the tent flap, carrying something under his arm.

Carpe’s book—I’d wondered what had happened to that.

“What is this?” he asked, handing it to me.

I made a big show of examining it, then shrugged. “It’s an old Egyptian book, well preserved, authentic.”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Odawaa continued. “I think you know something I do not about its value.”

“Where’s my bodyguard?” I countered.

Odawaa smiled. “Maybe I shot him.”

I could feel the sweat pilling on my forehead now . . . I hoped he didn’t notice or chalked it up to working in the heat. “Then I guess I don’t know anything.”

Odawaa pulled out a handgun. Not the flashier, more intimidating rifles his men carried but a gun you pull out when you’re faced with the very real inconvenience of having to shoot someone. He pointed it at Nadya’s head. “I do not believe you.”

“I can translate it for you,” Nadya piped up. “In fact, I’m better with languages than she is.”

The way Nadya said languages . . .

Odawaa narrowed his eyes. “Why would you help us?”

She jerked her head in my direction. “Because she has a bad habit of getting people killed and I’m more interested in my own neck.”

He seemed to consider that, then offered her the book before turning to his men.

I shook my head at Nadya, indicating I thought it was a bad idea. Blown up by misfiring magic was worse than pirates.

But she either didn’t see me—doubtful—or was ignoring me.

I watched as she opened the book and flipped through the pages, settling on one I didn’t like the look of. A curse . . . a sleep spell, by the looks of it.

“Nadya, bad—ow!” I turned to the guard, who’d rammed me again with the gun.

“No speaking to your friend,” Odawaa called.

While the guards were concentrating on me, I caught Nadya mouth the words, “Let me try to invoke it, all right?”

Not that I had a choice. Oh this was going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Nadya started to read out loud from the page, under her breath, pronouncing the ancient Egyptian deity supernatural words until she’d spoken the last one.

I waited, all my muscles tensed. Nothing happened. We were still in one piece, which was a bonus, but Odawaa and his men were still awake.

And then the wind picked up.

“Is that supposed to happen?” I whispered to Nadya.

“I don’t know, you tell me—you’re the one with experience in curses—”

“Well, I don’t see any of them sleeping yet.”

“Here, let me try another one.”

“Try another one?” I grabbed for the book, and yelling from Odawaa’s right- and left-hand men ensued. “Are you out of your mind?”

“If you had read it, there would be shrapnel already. Alix, let go of the book before they shoot us.”

“No, you let go!”

I’m sure either Odawaa or one of his men would have shot at us eventually, except that the crate Nadya had been in minutes before—the one holding the golem—shifted.

Everyone in the room froze, including Nadya and I, with both our hands on Carpe’s spell book.

“I thought you said that was a sleeping spell you read.”

“It was.”

“Then why is the golem moving?”

Nadya inclined her head and let out a breath. “Unforeseen magical misfire?”

The crate shifted again—this time with more force rocking the crate from side to side.

The two men holding the rifles both crossed their chests, said fast prayers, and backed up towards the exit—pointing the guns at the crate instead of us.

Odawaa turned to face us. “What manner of trick is this?”

“Yeah—I’d follow what your men are doing and back up,” I said as Nadya and I made for the stack of unopened crates behind us.

Odawaa barked a command at his men. They stopped short of running out of the tent, but this was the first time I saw any inkling of dissension, with both of them barking right back. Superstition one, modern science, zero.

Odawaa aimed his gun at me, not even a trace of the friendly façade left. “I do not know what trick this is, but you will bring it to an end now, or I will shoot you both.”

To give you an idea how badly the thing in the box scared us, neither of us stopped backing up. “Odawaa, trust me, if we could stop it, we would,” I said. We were almost at the crates.

Odawaa’s gun fired in the sand near my feet. Still I didn’t stop.

“You can either stand here and shoot us, or run,” I said. “I strongly suggest you run.”

The gun fired again, this time grazing my shoe. Well, it’s not like I hadn’t tried to warn him . . .

The crate cracked along its front as the first stone foot hit the ground.

That was it for Odawaa’s two men. They bolted for the entrance, ignoring Odawaa as he screamed after them.

I shared the sentiment. Gun or not, negotiations were over. “You know all that stuff you don’t believe in?” I said to him, nodding at the crate. “That’s it.” And despite the gun still aimed at us, Nadya and I dove behind the nearest intact crate.

Golems are . . . well . . . not a good idea is what it boils down to. Supernaturals used to make them to act as guards—ancient vampires were quite fond of them, as were genies and anything else that might have reason to hide from humans while they were sleeping. The problem is golems work on a primitive binary code, and you don’t always get what you pay for.

This one was big and made of rock. It stood about seven feet tall and had been sculpted without many features. Its torso consisted of a large, pendulous midsection, attached to a featureless head and rounded limbs. The whole thing reminded me of the Mesopotamian fertility gods. Golems weren’t built to look pretty, they were built to pound threats into roadkill.

Peering from behind the crate, Nadya and I stayed as still as possible. Golems responded to movement. Hopefully it would go for Odawaa, who was yelling for reinforcements steps away from the tent exit.

No such luck. It took two more steps out of the crate, but instead of running after Odawaa, it swiveled its stone head. Three unnaturally black pits chiseled into the front of its head focused in on us.

“If we split up and run, we might short-circuit it,” Nadya said.

“Or it could squish us.”

Turns out we didn’t have to test that theory. Odawaa’s reinforcements arrived and opened fire.

Like I said, golems work on binary logic. The guns going off overrode whatever proximity programming we’d triggered. Stone grating against stone, the golem swiveled and charged towards Odawaa and his men.

We took the opportunity to duck behind another crate while the bullets slapped against the oncoming golem, not that they were doing much good. Think rock-paper-scissors, except with bullets instead of scissors. Rock still wins.

Like idiots, they kept firing. I swore. You don’t try to defeat a golem, you run— fast—preferably into tight spots it can’t fit its limbs through. There’s a reason golems are found in tombs with a doorway smaller than they are.

As much as I’d have liked to get even with Odawaa and his band of merry pirates for pretending to be me . . .

“Odawaa, you idiot, you don’t shoot golems, you run!” I yelled.

Odawaa turned his gun in my direction. “There is no such thing as golems,” he snarled, a maniacal look on his face.

It’s the smart, sane ones who go ballistic when faced with their first supernatural.

“Don’t you think that’s a pretty fucking moot point—oh shit.” I ducked back down as Odawaa opened fire, bullets peppering the crates.

A high-pitched shriek echoed around the room, and I hazarded a peek back over the box in time to see the golem toss one of the pirates. I winced as bone met tent pole with a crunch. The man didn’t get back up—or move.

Odawaa’s sanity might’ve been getting a hell of a challenge today, but he wasn’t stupid. He and the remaining pirate abandoned their shooting and went for the tent flap.

Only problem was the tent wouldn’t halt a golem.

Come to think of it, the best bet was to follow their lead while the golem was busy. The crates were in the center of the room. We might be able to make a run for it and slide under the canvas.

I peeked over the edge to see where the golem was in time to see it bat Odawaa’s remaining man in our direction. I swore and ducked back down as the body collided with our crate. Bone cracking against plywood.

Yeah, not running. I heard Odawaa scream, I think, but I didn’t dare look—not with the golem lobbing human projectiles in our direction.

“That thing moves a hell of a lot faster than I thought it would,” I said to Nadya.

“Yes, its speed and agility are an unforeseen complication.”

“Unforeseen complication? Nadya, the golem is an unforeseen complication.”

She shrugged. “Like I said. Now stop worrying about how the golem got activated and start worrying about a way out—one that does not involve running by the golem.”

I frowned. “Me find a way? I was the one who told you not to read from Carpe’s goddamned magic book. You find a way out . . .”

The yelling and screaming had stopped.

Nadya frowned. “Go see what it is doing,” she said.

“No, you go see what it’s doing, it’s already thrown someone at me—oomph!” Without ceremony, Nadya shoved me so that I had no choice but to peek over the edge. Damn it, I needed to remember to push first next time . . .

No sign of Odawaa—or his body—and the tent flap had been torn off. Whether he’d gotten out or been thrown was up for debate. The golem was standing there, perfectly still. For whatever reason, programming or misfire, it had decided for the moment that this was the area it was supposed to protect. “I think it’s deactivated,” I said.

At the sound of my voice, its head swiveled around, the three black pits fixating on our crate.

I swore and ducked back down. What I needed was something that would trigger the attack response, get it going in one direction while we went the other . . . I scanned the things in reach. Vase? No, too ­expensive—I wasn’t that desperate yet. Buddha? The gold plate ­probably wouldn’t register as an attack—wait a minute . . .

I slid my hand between the crates as silently as I could and reached for the rifle strapped across the collapsed man’s chest. Eww, there was blood. Oh man, I signed up to be an antiquities thief specifically to avoid blood and shooting.

My fingers closed around the back of the gun strap, and I untangled it from the body.

Only problem was I didn’t know a goddamn thing about rifles. “Do you know how to use this?” I asked, handing it to Nadya.

She checked the gun. “It’s a Kalashnikov—that’s a yes,” she added when I gave her an exasperated look.

“Is it ready to fire?” I’m not one for guns—in my experience, unless you really know what you’re doing, the bad guys end up with the ­weapons—pointed at me.

She nodded, but a frown touched her face.

“Fantastic. I know exactly the distraction. Shoot the metal crates on the golem’s left,” I said.

“That’s a terrible idea—”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” I took back the gun and leveled the bullet end over the crate. “No!” Nadya yelled.

It was too late. I’d already pulled the trigger.

My plan had been to aim at the metal storage boxes piled on the far side of the tent and draw the golem’s attention away from us, leaving a short but clear pathway to freedom . . .

Fun fact: bullets ricochet when you shoot them at some types of metal. And the Kalashnikov is an automatic.

I swore and ducked back behind the crate with Nadya as the bullets rained back down on the artifacts and fakes, including the false Buddha statue. The pieces—brittle metal under the gold leaf—clattered to the ground all around us.

I knew I should have thrown the statue . . . maybe the golem hadn’t noticed?

I heard the granite on granite swivel as it charged.

Nadya shoved me to the left while she took off to the right. With two of us to chase, it might just short-circuit long enough to give us time to make it out under the tent flap.

The golem’s head swiveled towards me.

If the golem thought this was its new lair, then as soon as we slid under the tent flap, the off switch should be triggered. Or it might start rampaging through the pirates’ camp, but at this point I was desperate.

“Hurry up!” Nadya yelled. I checked over my shoulder and saw she was halfway under the tent. The golem had caught up.

The end of the tent was only a few feet away. Oh hell, I hoped I didn’t mess this up, otherwise I was going to be a sand popsicle . . .

The golem raised its arm to swing, and I dove. Maybe it was the fever, maybe it was just my personal brand of bad luck, but instead of sliding under the canvas, I slipped in the sand, the golem’s arms braced overhead.

There was no way I’d crawl out in time. I closed my eyes and winced. So that was how it ended; the great Owl smashed by an accidently triggered golem . . .

Before the golem could swing its rock hand down on me, a strong hand snatched my wrist and pulled me under the tent and out to safety. I felt the ground shake as the golem’s fist struck the sand. I looked up into Rynn’s face.

“Hi Alix, found a golem, I see?” he said, smiling.

Relief washed over me. “Let it never be said you don’t have good timing.”

But before I could do anything too embarrassing, Rynn turned to the man standing behind him. Not one of the pirates, but familiar-­looking . . . dark skin with a blue tinge to it, no hair, tall.

“I told you they’d be where the pirates were screaming ‘Monster,’ ” Rynn said.

The man frowned at me, and I realized why he looked familiar. He was a ringer for the guards who’d been stationed at both Artemis’s and Daphne’s homes. A genie.

Rynn’s genie friend frowned at me and used the one word of supernatural I recognized. Seereet. Rynn shrugged at him in response, and the genie turned back to me. “She is very small for someone to cause that much trouble. I would caution you to find another human.”

“Hey!” I said.

Rynn patted the genie on the back. “Don’t mind Nomun, Alix, he means no harm. He’s an air genie. Not much of a filter either. Owes me a gambling debt, so he’ll be getting us into Syria.”

The genie shook his head at me, still not looking convinced. “I must say, incubus, as a point of honor I should offer to extinguish this one for you. So much trouble—”

“Yeah, I can really see the ‘no harm’ part, Rynn,” I said, backing up as the genie peered down at me.

The genie threw back his head and laughed. “You were right, incubus, she is very gullible.”

Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I glared at Rynn, who couldn’t quite cover a laugh. “You thought that was funny?”

Nomun leaned down and patted my shoulder. “Please take no offense. I offered to get you out of harm’s way, but he claimed you would be just as likely to throw something at me as the golem.” He added to Rynn, “The pirates are dismantled for now, though no sign of their leader. If we leave now and the wind is good, we will get there before nightfall.”

“We need to grab the elf first—and the Mau,” Rynn said. “I left them back at Passer’s temple. They should be fine provided the elf didn’t do anything stupid.”

Shit . . . “No, wait—I need back in there,” I said. “We can’t leave without Carpe’s stupid book, and I’m not leaving the pirates with the dig notes.” Thief or not, an archaeologist would have kept a map and inventory. We’d also know if more cursed artifacts had been sold.

Nomun nodded. “I’ll deal with the golem,” he said. He frowned and shook his head as he headed into the tent ahead of me. “So much trouble for one so small.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I called after him.

As soon as Nomun disappeared into the tent, I shook my head at Rynn. “I got to admit, I’m a little disappointed. An incubus held in captivity by a pack of pirates.”

“Who said anything about captivity?” Rynn said, arching a blond eyebrow.

I frowned. “What the hell else could you have been doing for the past couple hours?”

Rynn’s smile widened. “How bout you come meet my entourage.”

“What entourage?”