Early evening: Just below the waterline of Venice.
I came to seated in a chair this time. The sloshing water woke me—and the cold sensation that engulfed my feet, which were submerged up to my ankles. Considering my boots and legs were soaked but the first chills of hypothermia hadn’t set in, I guessed I’d been sitting here for ten to twenty minutes.
I checked my hands, but no restraints had been placed around them. In fact, I found I was completely free to move. The relief at not being tied up was short-lived—about as long as it took to realize that I couldn’t see.
I remembered the canvas bag tossed hastily over my head and pulled tight—and the off scent of rotting lily of the valley. I blindly felt for the bag, and, finding the rough canvas, I felt for the string. I found an intricate knot and began to work my fingers into it, feeling to loosen it. I did a mental check: no grogginess, no problem with motor control. Whatever kind of vampire this da Vinci was—and there was no doubt in my mind that that’s what he had to be—his pheromones were faulty, as was his regeneration if I read the scent of rotting flesh right. Somehow I didn’t think a sick vampire was necessarily better than the healthy version—not when both tried to eat you and one wasn’t packing a full set of painkillers. I also picked up traces of mildew and chemicals, reminiscent of oil paints.
Before I could parse out any more scents, the canvas bag was pulled off my head with a flourish.
“Let us try that again. You don’t scream, and I won’t use the chloroform on you and the Mau again, yes?”
Crouched in front of me, holding the bag in one hand, was possibly the strangest old man I’d ever seen. Long salt-and-pepper hair that hadn’t been cut in years fell around his shoulders, and he had a beard to match. His clothing was in tatters and arranged in an odd array: a long canvas parka worn over rough jeans and tied with what looked like a combination of leather belts. A heavy wool shawl thrown over his shoulders added to the strangeness, giving his attire an old-fashioned effect despite the obviously modern pieces.
Old, unattractive, and with a lack of interest in fashion and grooming: all in all, it was the least likely looking vampire scenario I’d ever seen. Either through conscious selection or as a side effect of being turned, vampires were normally as fastidious as cats when it came to hygiene and grooming.
In fact, if it hadn’t been for the lily of the valley smell, I’d have debated whether or not this was a vampire at all.
Vampires were the cockroaches of the supernatural world, but they were one of the only ones that started off as human. In contrast to the vampire legends, they didn’t acquire super strength or powers of persuasion. What they did get was a secretable aromatic pheromone that had an opiate-like sedation effect on any nearby humans. It was a high that was as pleasant and addictive as heroin. Victims didn’t always even know they were being preyed upon by vampires. They just kept going back for more until there was very little left of them but a living, breathing junkie whose only desire in life was to do the vampire’s bidding. It wasn’t a nice way to live, and they were used and discarded more often than not.
The point was that even the youngest vampire could incapacitate an adult human. A trace of pheromones alone should have me reduced to Owl-flavored Jell-O. Yet here I was. Cringing.
He smiled absently, showing me his slightly elongated incisors. They were a tartar-stained yellow. Again, not typical for a vampire.
I spotted the source of the chemical scents across the shallow room, set out on the easel below a half-finished piece of artwork, one that hadn’t been in the workshop before. I got a glimpse of it: a macabre and beautiful work, featuring a family of four in various stages of decay.
“Ah—my last guests. Do you like it?”
I turned my attention back to my supposed Leonardo. “You know, I think you’re really missing out on ironic comedy. You should really try to pass these off and watch the art experts sweat.”
That earned me a laugh. “Thinking of escaping, are we? Don’t lie, I saw you glance about my workshop. Not a bad survival strategy, running from predators, though I suggest you look up before you set your mind to it.”
I did—still keeping the vampire in my sights.
Shit. Above me, suspended from pulleys, was a spiked metal ball large enough to take both me and the chair out, along with a decent chunk of the floor.
“If your weight shifts even a fraction, the spike is rigged to fall. It is quite deadly. I thought it would be a greater incentive to keep your half of the conversation civil.”
“A little overkill, don’t you think?” I asked but still shuffled my ass so it was square in the center of the chair. Even if he was bluffing, those pulleys and ropes didn’t look stable.
“As I was saying earlier,” Leonardo said, “I have a problem with eating people I like. As much as I try, my acquaintances never seem to last that long. It used to bother me, but now I find the best thing for my mind and soul is to accept the inevitable, enjoy the moment, and do my best to record their memory on canvas, yes?”
The fact that he was confessing to being an uncontrolled, impulsive serial killer who knocked off online vacation tourists because he couldn’t help himself did not put me at ease, particularly the fact that he seemed to be asking me to admit it was okay. Over my dead body—scratch that, not over my dead body . . .
I noticed a canvas bag on the floor tucked underneath the table in a shallow puddle. It wriggled and huffed, then let out a forlorn mew. Even this close, though, Captain wasn’t close to his normal vampire reaction. I did another mental check. No pheromone effects at all. I could smell the rotting lily of the valley, but even this close it did nothing.
Maybe da Vinci wasn’t a vampire; maybe he just smelled like one . . . sort of.
I peered at his features, searching for the telltale signs of vampirism. Leonardo’s deflated and wrinkled face smiled back at me, exposing his yellow fangs.
I swallowed. Just because he wasn’t a normal vampire didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
“Please understand that I don’t want to hurt anyone, it’s simply in my nature now, like a cat killing a mouse when there’s a full bowl of food. But I do love conversations. I hoped we could have one,” he added as he turned towards a desk to choose a new brush. I spotted the journal out in the open. Yeah, I was going to need that . . .
“Tell me, what is it you and the incubus are looking for?”
I hesitated. At the moment he wasn’t trying to eat me. Once I gave him what he wanted? All bets were off.
Leonardo’s upper lip curled as he tsked, the first sign I’d seen of displeasure. He turned his back on me, and I heard the sound of rustling papers.
At least there wasn’t anything in reach that could lend itself to violence . . .
I heard the clink of metal out of my line of sight, heavier than a paint spatula or brush. He flashed me another yellowed, toothy smile and held up a set of pliers stained a brown that I didn’t think was rust.
He held them up. “I find that fingernails are very effective. You will tell me what I wish to know, yes?”
When a crazed vampire threatens to torture you for information and has the stained tools to back it up, tell it whatever the hell it wants to know. Holding out is for martyrs and heroes.
I nodded and held up my hands. “No need for a manicure.”
He smiled again and nodded as he shuffled towards me, wet slippers slopping against the floorboards. “After, yes?” he said, holding up the tools again. “After I take a fingernail or two, you won’t be tempted to lie.” He paused. “Or maybe I’ll take all of them—for my collection.”
I realized that the painting I’d been admiring of the American tourists was a collage made of delicately painted fingernails.
Leonardo closed in on me. I leaned back as far as I could without sliding off the chair. “I’m looking for the Tiger Thieves, all right?”
The pliers paused. “Ahh, I suspected as much,” he said, and held up my amulet, the gold lines glinting in the lamplight. He narrowed in on me, grasping both my shoulders with his bony hands, the chair rocking back as his rancid breath washed over me. I glanced up at the spiked ball now rocking precariously overhead.
“Did they tell you to come after me, flush poor Leonardo out?”
Oh, Oricho was going to get an earful about not doing due diligence . . . “No! I just want to find them, that’s all. I swear!”
His face took on a manic panic, and he began searching the room with his reddened eyes. “You’re working for them, aren’t you?” I flinched as neutered vampire spittle sprayed over my face. “Are they here? Is that why you’re still here talking to me?”
“No. I’m still sitting here because you rigged a spiked cannonball over my head. Trust me, if it wasn’t there, I’d be long gone.”
“I don’t believe you.” He spat on the floor and searched the room again, his eyes turning an angry red. “I wouldn’t put it past them—lurking, teasing me, laughing at me.” He snorted. “You never know when the Tiger Thieves are watching, manipulating you—they’re tricky that way.” He turned back to his desk to rummage angrily once again. I saw where he placed my amulet—on the open page of the red journal.
A piece of canvas was jostled, uncovering a new piece he was working on: me and Captain, immortalized for the ages with terror-stricken faces.
“What a coincidence you came down here when you did. I’d given up on finding any more of these. You do know what it is, don’t you?”
Best course of action? Play along with him until I figured out a better course of action.
I offered him a slow nod. “It’s a Tiger Thief amulet. It’s supposed to lead to the Tiger Thieves.”
The madness left Leonardo and he nodded back at me with clear eyes. He held up his hand, and I realized he was holding a second amulet. “Not perhaps so much as a guide but as a puzzle to solve. The Tiger Thieves are a reclusive lot, but you are correct, these amulets are the key. I’ve been trying to find them for a very long time, hundreds of years now, I believe. I think they can help me with my”—he paused as if searching for a word—“predicament,” he finally settled on.
That was one way to put it.
“An unfortunate one, a very long time ago, and one of many mistakes of which I’ve since lost count. All that blood . . .” he trailed off, apparently remembering something more pleasant.
Come on, Owl, think of a way to get out of here before you become dinner.
“The amulets,” I tried, nodding at the two still clasped in his hand.
“Ah yes! The Tiger Thieves—where was I? They are not altruistic, as the stories make them out to be—or easy to find. Malcontents and rebels one and all—set on visiting their form of justice on the supernatural communities. I suppose you’ve heard that they’re the righteous, the helpful?” His eyes reddened once again, the anger returning. “You’d be wrong. Otherwise they would have helped me a long time ago. History is written by the survivors, and there were not many back when they roamed the Silk Road. Now? In this modern era? They say nothing at all.” He gave me a toothy smile before shuffling back to his desk. “Rather like me.”
I was relieved that the rotting mix of scents retreated, giving my nose a reprieve.
“It’s been a long time since I remembered the Tiger Thieves and their amulet,” he said. “So I suppose I have you to thank for that. Did I mention I do like visitors? Blood really is quite the distraction, especially with global travel in this time. So many flavors and delicacies.”
Okay, Owl, keep him off the topic of fresh blood . . . “What happened to my companion?”
“Ah, your incubus friend? I fear he is indisposed at the moment.” Leonardo stood up and pulled back a brown-stained cloth. Underneath was Artemis, unconscious and prone. Leonardo crouched over him and with a heavy glass syringe removed a sample of the incubus’s blood. Artemis didn’t so much as wince. So much for the cavalry.
Keep Leonardo off the topic of blood . . . “I’ve never heard of anyone—supernatural or otherwise—able to reverse a turning,” I said cautiously.
Leonardo clucked his tongue. “Ah, yes, but that would require a true turning, now, wouldn’t it? And though I share some of their traits, even your cat has discovered that I’m not a vampire—not truly, at any rate.”
Something I’d come across in his journal struck me, about the elixir components he’d experimented with—pixies, incubi, fairies—vampires . . .
“You did this to yourself, didn’t you?” It also explained why Artemis had been confused by his scent. “And you think the Tiger Thieves can fix you?” I felt a spike of hope surface. If they could fix Leonardo, why not Rynn? Whatever the elves had done to the Electric Samurai armor couldn’t be worse than what da Vinci had done to himself.
Leonardo hissed at me, flashing his canines and the reddened whites of his eyes. “Can? Certainly. But will they? Of course not. Why would they want to save Leonardo? Did this to myself—an eye for an eye, they like to think.” He spat and it hit the water, sending out shallow ripples. “Warnings? They never warned me of this.” His eyes flickered for a moment as his sneer turned into a grin. “Eye for an eye, they’ll learn what Leonardo can do.” He shook a cardboard box filled with objects not unlike the one Artemis had found.
My stomach turned as I saw another silver bat peek over the edge. A weapon against the supernatural.
“Revenge. It’s one of the few things that keeps me from draining every human I encounter.” He glanced at me. “Well, I suppose delay is a more accurate word.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Or perhaps whet my appetite,” he said, picking up the canvas bag holding Captain.
Captain, as if sensing the shift in attention, growled and lashed out, his claws cutting through the canvas and grazing Leonardo’s chest. Da Vinci, apparently aware of what a Mau could do, stumbled back.
He turned on me and let out a snarl, once again flashing his yellow fangs. “You put your Mau up to that, didn’t you? And here I thought we were being civil.”
Time to bargain before da Vinci’s sanity could slip any further. “Look, we’re both trying to find the Tiger Thieves. Wouldn’t it make more sense to”—I was about to say “work together,” but not even the most gullible would buy that—“share information?”
Da Vinci considered that and smiled. “I’ll tell you what, give me the incubus and I’ll tell you everything I know about the Tiger Thieves, hmmm?”
Wow. This was a conundrum. Throw Artemis under the bus in exchange for information on the Tiger Thieves, or try to save him. I mean, in general I’m against the idea of handing anyone over to vampires, but it was Artemis . . . Sometimes I really hate my conscience . . . not that it wasn’t tempting, but considering his current state, I didn’t think da Vinci was one to pay the fuck up on his deals.
“No offense, but leaving him here wouldn’t be doing you any favors. Isn’t the serum what got you into this mess in the first place?” Da Vinci’s smile fell. I added, “And I’m not at all certain you’ll hold up your end of the deal.”
His smile returned. “Isn’t that one of the spices of life? Uncertainty? Consider it a hypothesis. Will I or will I not kill you? Or perhaps I’ve found another way to outwit you.”
At first I thought the movement was my imagination—Artemis was still lying on the floor, his eyes closed. Then I saw his index finger twitch, followed by a tapping sound, barely audible over the water . . . it was a song, one of Artemis’s from the late nineties, “I Have a Plan.”
Because relying on Artemis’s plans was such a fantastic idea.
I gave a quick, slight shake of my head when da Vinci turned back to his desk, hoping Artemis would see it.
“Now, where’s that syringe?” da Vinci mumbled, back to the harmless-old-man routine. “It’s a special one—I know I left it somewhere around here—ah!” He turned back to face me, a long glass syringe in his hand, much larger than the one he’d just used. “You know, in all of my elixir experiments, I never once tried spinal fluids—I think that’s something to be explored, no?”
The tapping from Artemis increased in intensity, changing the rhythm while he kept his eyes shut. Another song, this one called “More Time.”
I made a face.
“And of course I’ll need to try the Mau blood.”
What the—? I whipped my head up.
“And possibly some of the other fluids. It’s hard to say what will work, but I’m hopeful your Mau’s antivampiric properties will counteract the less savory side effects of the vampirism keeping me alive.”
I glanced back at Artemis. One of his eyes was open. I mouthed “fine” at him. Buy the incubus more time from the psychotic vampire. I just hoped Artemis’s plan involved getting all of us out. With my luck he’d be gone before I could scream.
I watched da Vinci as he worked, mumbling to himself—dilutions, order, purification all reached my ears—but it reeked of the ramblings of a man driven mad by desperation and obsession.
Desperation. Maybe that was my ticket.
I kept the journal and the pendants in my sights. “Look, why not try the Tiger Thieves again? It’s had to have been what? Five hundred years?”
“Those glorified assassins?” da Vinci hissed. “The ones responsible for my decrepit predicament?”
I swallowed at the way da Vinci held the spinal syringe as if it were a knife, his thin hands turning white. The Tiger Thieves were definitely a sore spot. Kudos, Owl, you guessed right—though I doubted there was any kind of door prize.
I did not like the look of those fangs. “Well, you know, even the supernaturally inclined have to change management occasionally—I’d imagine after five hundred years it’d be worthwhile to try them again. I mean, who knows? They might be more willing to listen to you now—shit.” I leaned back as da Vinci closed in on me, rattling the spiked ball hanging above my head. Artemis still hadn’t done a damn thing.
“Supernatural?” da Vinci snorted. “The Tiger Thieves are poor imitations, the lot of them. Not worth the time of day compared to what I achieved. They’re as much at odds with the real supernaturals as paltry humans such as yourself.”
Not that I wasn’t fixated on the swinging spiked ball suspended overhead, but even I couldn’t help catching what he had said. Not supernatural or human? Now, that was interesting. I filed that tidbit away and nodded to the box he’d been rifling through. “All the better, then. I mean, I’d think they’d be interested in your devices now—like that one,” I said as he lifted a small, smooth metallic orb that had been broken into two pieces out of the box.
Another huff from da Vinci. I could smell the mildew and algae that had taken up residence in his clothes over the years. The ones he’d probably stolen from his victims.
“This old thing?” he asked, holding up the orb. “It barely works. It was supposed to drain supernaturals of all their powers, but it does little more than wound them. Tried it on a vampire once. It died a wretched death, screaming in agony while it shriveled into a dusty corpse. One of my failures, that.”
“You kidding? That sounds pretty fantastic to me. All right, you’re right! It’s one of your biggest failures, my mistake.” I cringed as I smelled his acrid breath, devoid of the bacteria smell but rotting nonetheless—rotting while he lived. But the look on his face— I hazarded a glance at Artemis. I hoped to hell he’d made some progress . . . oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.
Gone. He was gone. Completely fucking gone. He hadn’t even bothered to loosen the tie on Captain’s canvas bag prison.
Ungrateful, lousy, no-good—
“Any last words?” da Vinci whispered. His eyes had turned a weepy red. He licked his lips, running them over the yellow fangs. “I’m truly sorry about this, but I believe I have enough sketched here to remember you and your cat by.”
I glanced back up at the metal spikes glinting above me. Da Vinci was oblivious as he loomed over me. I held my breath—not to keep out the vampire pheromones or whatever neutered version he produced—but to keep out the miasma of the lingering death that shrouded him.
I’d have to time it perfectly . . .
“That is the nature of my cursed existence. But you know what they say, genius always suffers for art.”
His fangs were extended, the saliva gleaming as he gripped my hand and turned the wrist over, exposing my blue-green veins. “I’d like to say I’ll only take a bite, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop. It really has been lovely meeting you.”
I glanced back up at the cannonball. Please let this work . . . “Wish I could say the same,” I said. As soon as he bent to bite my wrist, I kicked back the chair with as much force as I could muster.
The world went in slow motion, and for a brief moment I watched the cannonball detach from the pulleys. My chair fell backwards, but caught in vampiric bloodlust da Vinci didn’t—or couldn’t—let go. His eyes went wide as realization struck him, but it was too late. The cannonball struck as the back of my chair crashed to the floor. I only heard the spikes crunch into his skull—and saw the aftermath as I scrambled up. Captain bleated in his bag, sensing that he’d missed a fight. I pushed myself up and went to untie him. “Trust me, this wasn’t the vampire fight you wanted. Who knows whether your saliva would even have made a dent?”
Captain grumbled but settled for sniffing at the body. Da Vinci might have stumbled across an elixir of longevity, but it sure hadn’t been one of immortality—as his very dead and mangled corpse told me.
Normally I’d celebrate a near-death escape. On the one hand, I’d gotten rid of a serial killer; on the other, he had been a victim—one of his own making but a victim nonetheless. I couldn’t celebrate that.
“Well, that was quite the show. Not the way I would have done it—”
Artemis was leaning casually against the small door frame. My anger returned in spectacular form. “Buy me time? So what, you could save your own skin?”
If my tone bothered him, he showed no sign of it. “You got out. Both of us did, and without losing anything.” He frowned as he glanced at da Vinci’s corpse. “Well, except maybe for your dignity. Do you realize who you just killed? Possibly one of the greatest minds your species has ever spawned.”
“He was a decrepit vampire.”
He seemed to think about that as he crouched down by da Vinci’s body. “Be that as it may, you’ve more than lived up to your reputation of destroying ancient sites. I mean, technically—”
“Technically I killed a serial killer vampire who was about to eat me.”
Artemis didn’t look convinced. He was the last person I needed to sway to my side. “Look, just wait there while I look through his things and, I don’t know, entertain my cat.”
Artemis said something under his breath but otherwise did as I asked—namely stayed back. While I rummaged through the desk, Artemis examined da Vinci’s corpse.
“Not that I socialize with many vampires, but are they supposed to look this decrepit?”
I shook my head as I checked the journal to make certain it was the one with the references to the Tiger Thieves. It was. “No. Granted, the oldest vampire I’ve met is only three centuries. I’ve seen vampire flunkies look like that but it’s more a consequence of pheromone addiction.” The Tiger Thief pendants were both lying on the desk next to the wooden box da Vinci had been rummaging through, the one with the broken weapons. I picked up both of the necklaces and ran my fingers over the gold lines that decorated each before tucking them both inside my jacket. I paused, my eyes falling on the box.
I couldn’t resist. I picked up the broken silver orb da Vinci had claimed could drain a supernatural of their power and rolled it over in my hand. It looked simple enough: a silver sphere split almost in half, the halves hanging on to each other by metal chains and copper threads, decorated with small pinpoint-precise holes and other markings I imagined had to be arcane.
Broken things could be fixed. I began to search the desk for blueprints that matched the orb.
“What is that?” Artemis asked from where he was now emptying da Vinci’s pockets. I had a disturbing flashback to the peculiar looting style of World Quest, where the longer you looked for treasure on a victim the rougher things got—disturbingly so . . .
With a shiver I exiled that to the back of my mind. This was not World Quest, and Artemis didn’t have da Vinci by the ankles to shake him out.
“Not sure,” I said, which was partially true. “But I got the impression da Vinci thought the Tiger Thieves might be interested in it.” Not entirely untrue. They might be interested in it. I certainly was.
Now, where the hell were the blueprints?
Even though I had my back to Artemis, I got the sinking suspicion he wanted to argue as I rifled through the piles of papers. He didn’t get a chance.
Both of us came to a standstill at the sound of a crash upstairs, as if a door—or a wall—had been broken in.
I waited to hear footsteps or voices but none followed. “Maybe it was an act of God?” Lack of structural integrity, a beam that was destined to go and just happened to do so now?
Artemis shook his head. “That was intentional.”
“Vampires or another monster?”
He shook his head once more. “The monsters don’t make that much noise.”
That narrowed it down to a whopping two possibilities. Either someone had stumbled into the old rooms—unlikely—or someone had come looking for us. “IAA,” I said. It was my best guess, plus they were experts at bad timing . . .
The building shook once more, but it wasn’t an earthquake or questionable structural integrity. It had been an explosion, I’d bet what was left of my thieving reputation on it. This time the murmur of voices reached us.
“Since when does the IAA use explosives?” Artemis asked.
I shook my head. “They don’t.” Which meant it was someone else. I knew one group after artifacts that had no issues throwing around small explosives. Mercenaries. And Rynn and his crew were the only ones with a reason to be following me.
Artemis came to the same conclusion. He checked the stairwell from the cover of the workshop. He darted back just as quickly, shutting the workshop door and throwing the lock. He grabbed my arm. “All right, change in plans. Can you keep the cat quiet?”
The question caught me off guard. “Except for vampires? Usually.”
Apparently that was good enough. He pulled me towards one of da Vinci’s closets and began throwing out enough contents that the two of us could fit inside.
Then he tried shoving me and Captain in. “Hiding in a closet? Are you out of your mind?”
“Trust me.”
“No!”
Artemis glanced over his shoulder as footsteps hurried down the staircase. They’d reach the small platform in no time if they hadn’t already, and then they’d be breaking down the door. Sure enough, the battering ram started pounding the door and shaking the room.
Artemis pursed his lips and shoved me and Captain inside before getting in himself and shutting the door.
“Wait a minute—” The rest of my sentence was muffled by Artemis’s hand.
“I understand your reluctance to trust me, but believe me when I say I have no intention of running into my illustrious warlord cousin today.”
I tried pulling his damned hand off my mouth. When that didn’t work, I pinched him as hard as I could.
“If I take my hand off, will you keep your bloody voice to a whisper?”
I glared but nodded. Even if I wanted to find a different way out, I’d be hard pressed before they broke down the door. Besides, there might not be one.
Slowly he unmuffled me, searching my face for any sign that I might ignore his warning.
“What I was trying to say,” I whispered, “is that the closet is the worst place to hide.” The battering ram hit the door to the workshop again and fragments of plaster and wood rained down on us.
Artemis’s upper lip curled. “No, it isn’t,” he hissed back.
The room shook once more, this time accompanied by a cracking sound. “Are you out of your mind? As soon as they see the body, this is the first place they’ll check! If we were smart, we would have hid the body in here and looked for another way out!”
“They won’t see us.”
I would have said more, but at that moment the wooden door gave one last shriek and we heard boots pour in.
I froze in place, hands wrapped around Captain, and watched through the closet door cracks.
It wasn’t just Rynn’s mercenaries. In the lead, framed in the workshop entrance, was none other than Rynn. He was dressed in the same modern body armor he’d been wearing in Shangri-La, the Electric Samurai’s modern guise. He looked like any other mercenary—only he wasn’t. The Electric Samurai armor and the twisted spell the elves had cast had corrupted Rynn to the core. And for what? All because the elves had wanted to reclaim Rynn and force him into the mold of their perfect warrior. It had gone woefully wrong. To be honest, Rynn really didn’t look that different. That was something the Electric Samurai was very good at, blending in with the times.
It was his expression that gave him away, just like it had in the mirror, the pale blue eyes so different from his normal blue-gray. It lent the rest of his face an icy expression, as if all the warmth had been sucked out. Behind Rynn I noted a handful of mercenaries, some of whom I recognized from Shangri-La, Zebras who’d fallen behind. They looked odd. Their faces were blank, devoid of any expression. They focused solely on Rynn, as if waiting to act on his slightest whim.
I held my breath as Rynn took another step closer and peered around the workshop before settling his attention on the closet. It was as if he could see me right through the cracks.
“Open the closet,” Rynn said.
Artemis squeezed my shoulder in warning. “Keep quiet and perfectly still,” he breathed into my ear as one of Rynn’s mercenaries approached the door. The flashlight beam danced through the cracks. Cursory inspection done, he gripped the handle.
There was no way he’d miss us.
I shut my eyes and gripped Captain as the door opened and the flashlight beam fell on us—
“Nothing here,” the mercenary said.
I opened my eyes. Two mercenaries stood outside the closet, staring at us, and I stared back in terror. But they didn’t react, didn’t attack. They didn’t see us.
Rynn himself came over and peered into the closet. He didn’t see us either, though he seemed less able to believe it. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air and his eyes turned a lighter shade of blue. So much colder and more calculating since the last time I’d seen him in Shangri-La.
I thanked an assortment of gods that Captain decided to stay quiet as Rynn’s cold eyes ran over us, once, then twice.
“Boss?”
Rynn looked away from me at the mercenary who had called him. “I found something,” the man said in a monotone, mechanical-sounding voice.
When Rynn moved, I was able to see what the brainwashed mercenary had found: a ragged hole in the wall large enough for someone to crawl through. I guess da Vinci had created his own exits.
Rynn examined the hole, then stood up, once again running his eyes over the room. “They were here. I can smell the cat—and a faint trace of her.” He nodded towards the canvas, the portrayal of terrified me and Captain. “And that proves it. Find them.”
It looked as if they might all leave, but Rynn halted just shy of the door. His eyes narrowed, and he took a step back towards our hiding spot. I held my breath. He might not be able to see us, but if he decided to feel around . . .
Or to hell with it and just shoot.
But partway he stopped. If I hadn’t known Rynn better, I’d have said he was second-guessing himself—which I’d never seen him do before. Maybe the Electric Samurai wasn’t as well integrated as we’d thought. Maybe Rynn was still in there somewhere, fighting.
“Check the rest of the building. Don’t let them slip through our grasp,” he said, heading for the stairs. “All the floors and the water below. Owl isn’t above a dip in putrid water.”
The mercenaries fell into line with robot-like compliance, but not until the last one had left the workshop did I breathe again. It was Artemis who spoke first. “I don’t know about you, but after that effort I don’t have much left.” His skin was covered with a thin layer of sweat, and he sounded winded.
I nodded. “My contribution? We run like hell.”
“All for it. Which way, oh fearless leader?”
Good question. I inclined my head. As far as I could tell, the mercenaries and Rynn had split up after they’d left the workshop. “Think you can pull that trick again? If it were only one or two?”
“Not even if all I had to do was fool a pigeon. Do you realize what it took to hide us from my cousin?” He trailed off. “Do you hear that?”
“What? Mercenaries?”
“No. Running water—a lot of it.”
I tilted my head to the side as I wrangled with Captain, who’d also decided now was the time to leave. Faintly I picked up the sound of running water, stronger than the dripping that was in the workshop—and there was the sound of something else as well, underneath the noise.
“It sounds like pumps—heavier than the ones he used in here,” he whispered as one of the mercenaries passed by just outside the open door.
I’d wondered how da Vinci had gotten around the flooding—and now I knew what all those tubes had been for. He must have channeled the outflow from these rooms into a larger system, like a holding cistern for dumping into the canal.
“How much do you want to bet it leads just outside the city?” The currents there were stronger on account of the lagoon; it would be easier to hide a large outflow of water there than in one of the canals.
“I don’t particularly care if it leads into a private swimming pool, so long as my cousin doesn’t see us leaving.”
That was something I could agree with.
We made our way to the workshop door. Through the crack we spotted two mercenaries almost immediately, standing above the flooded stairs as if guarding against something that might surface from the depths.
There was a jab to my shoulder. “I’ve decided to abandon my misogynistic ways. You go first,” Artemis whispered.
I glared. “Not a supernatural, asshole. And of all the times you could have picked to become a feminist— Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
Artemis shoved me into the stairwell. I scrambled for cover in the shadow of the door. Luckily the guards didn’t look down. One benefit to dealing with mercenaries who’d been robbed of independent thought was that they weren’t exactly quick on their feet. They were hanging out by the stairwell, staring off into space like a matching pair of living zombies.
“Now what?” I asked Artemis as he joined me.
In answer, he picked up a small stone off the floor and launched it up the stairwell. It hit the landing just above and like a pair of programmed NPCs, the two mercenaries ascended the stairs to see what had caused the noise.
Artemis nodded at the submerged stairs below us. “After you.”
Try not to think about what’s in there . . . I pinched my nose and quietly slid in.
Captain huddled by the edge of the water shivering with unpleasant anticipation, flicking the end of his tail. He remembered the last time he’d gone for a swim in my bathtub. There was an easy way and a hard way . . .
“The pumps should be no more than half a level down. You should be fine, as will your cat.”
I pushed the wet hair out of my face. Yeah, well, I might realize that . . . Captain huffed his suspicions at me.
The hard way it was.
Footsteps were coming back down the stairs. Captain looked away from me, forgetting the threat of water. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in. I felt a pang of guilt at the look he shot me as he submerged and reappeared with a bedraggled head of fur. “Lesser evil than having Rynn or one of his brain-dead merry men use you as a pincushion,” I whispered.
Artemis slid in and disappeared under the water. Not wanting to get lost in the depths, I took a deep breath and followed with Captain securely tucked under my jacket. Artemis had been right about one thing: the pump exit to the canal was nearby, an old cement storm sewer that had been forgotten and repurposed by da Vinci.
Everything went dark as the current created by the pump dragged me into the pipe. I counted to three before I spilled into colder water that was moving much faster. It dragged us farther under until the current stopped. I shot towards the surface.
Sun hit my face.
Through my tangled and drenched hair I took a quick look around. We were just on the outskirts of the floating islands. I searched the stone wall, but if anyone noticed us, they decided not to pay attention. More important, I didn’t see any sign of Rynn or his mercenaries.
I winced as sharp claws dug into my shoulder and Captain climbed up out of my jacket to perch on my head, grumbling the entire way.
“Okay, yeah, I might have deserved that,” I told him. My eyes stayed on the walkway, though, as I continued to search for signs of Rynn.
There was a flicker in a window overhead—slight and small, but it was there, just as it had been when we’d first entered da Vinci’s lair. I found the source: another church, worn and boarded up, its stained glass dusty. I waited for the flicker to reappear as my heart beat hard. Not a flicker, not even a shadow to hint it had been real.
“Come on,” Artemis said, swimming for the wall. “We need to get out of here before they smarten up and check the water. I know the way.”
I followed him, once again placing my survival in his hands. That wasn’t messed up at all.
I swam to the city wall. I shivered as I pulled myself and Captain out of the water—and not just from the cold. There was still no sign of Rynn or his mercenaries, but still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me.
Before we disappeared into an alley, I took one last look over my shoulder to see if the reflection reappeared in the church window.
Despite my sinking feeling, there wasn’t a soul I could see in the dusty glass.