6

THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF CHARITY GREENWOODS

11:00 a.m., Sunday

The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

You’d be amazed at how hard it is to keep an eye on your surroundings when there are trees and artistically placed totem poles in your path. And I don’t just mean one or two trees, I mean they stuck the campus in the middle of a forest with brush and wildlife besides rats.

I glanced around the path again. I could not shake the feeling someone was watching us, even though Captain was settled into his carrier and hadn’t even lifted his head in the last hour. Rynn didn’t seem concerned either. It was possible it was just the onslaught of nature—something I expected from a dig site, not a university. Canadians were definitely not concerned about visibility.

I chalked my pinging spider sense up to too much travel over the past few days. I just needed to get my fingers into the exhibit.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” I said, needing to break the silence. “Up to the university, that is. We could have arranged a meet-up.” I didn’t add, Somewhere that you would fit in a little better—like an upscale bar in the trendy Kits area just outside the campus, where he wouldn’t have garnered looks from the female student population that was up here on a Sunday. Me? I could hide in plain sight. Nadya could too when pressed. But Rynn? Every coed we’d passed had given us a second look. Well, no, they’d given Rynn a second look. . . .

“Nadya isn’t here,” he said.

“Yes, but I don’t need Nadya or you to watch my back. It’s not like I haven’t done this before.” Since long before I met Rynn.

“Consider me insurance the vampires don’t show up.”

“I have Captain for that.”

Captain, at the sound of his name, issued a noise that was a cross between a growl and a meow from inside his carrier-turned-backpack, perpetually hopeful for a treat. “See? Vampire detection at its finest.”

“Fine, then consider me backup if something besides vampires shows up.”

I fell silent, and not just because the totem poles that decorated the front of the anthropology museum had come into view through the campus trail. Rynn had a point. And to be completely honest, I’d rather have Rynn around even if it was only vampires that showed up. Especially since they tended to travel in numbers, cockroaches of the supernatural world that they were.

Even though it was a weekend, there were only a few couples milling outside the anthropology museum entrance. I kept my head down as we passed by and headed around the side of the building, where the researchers’ entrance would be.

It was a Sunday morning and, as I’d suspected, there wasn’t a single grad student on a smoke break. I took my collection of white access cards out of my bag. “Canadian . . . Canadian . . .” I said to myself as I searched through the thick ring holding them together. I’d made a habit of collecting university access cards over the years. Trust me, when it comes to research facilities, outside military and medical research of the narcotic pharmaceutical variety, security measures barely kept the riffraff out. And no, that doesn’t include me. Changing security systems is expensive. The cards get reworked every five years or so—at most. And even then I figure they just cycled through the old codes.

“There it is.” I pulled out a white security card labeled UBC in smeared blue marker and swiped it along the back research entrance door panel. As I’d suspected, the green light went on and I heard the door to the museum click open, just for yours truly.

“God, if half the world’s museums were this easy to waltz into—” I was halfway tempted to bet Rynn that the card would work on most of the buildings . . . “Think there’s anything interesting in the chemistry building?” I asked.

He made a face. “I’m amazed they bothered with the cards at all if they weren’t going to keep track of them.” Rynn was frowning at me. I shrugged. “They turn away the odd klepto and burgeoning drug dealers looking for free equipment, but beyond that? I don’t think they figured on antiquities thieves waltzing through. I kept it after an excursion up here for some Inuit artifacts last year.” I’d had a collector who’d gotten in a beef with the university—or one of the curators up here. It’d been a shockingly easy job, and totally legit—I mean, they’d practically been planning on selling it to him until an argument . . .

Still, Rynn’s frown didn’t go anywhere. “You’ve been here before? Using that card?”

It took me a second to figure out that Rynn wasn’t concerned about the general principle. I shook my head. “Seriously, this is one of the least guarded IAA facilities on the planet. It’s Canada—might as well be a research station in Greenland. I’d be surprised if they even realized I took anything last time.” Skeleton crew campus security, rooms full of boxes that hadn’t been opened since 1970, an ever-revolving roster of three-month grant employees and student interns hired to curate the boxes they did manage to open. It was a wonder anything ever got unpacked, and even more unlikely that anyone actually bothered to check the boxes, drawers, and shelves to see if everything was still there.

If I wanted to do them a real favor, I’d label and sort a couple things for them while I searched.

“Last time I found a handful of early Viking settler artifacts from back east mixed in with the First Nations display stuff. On display. Do you realize how much of a screwup that is?”

Rynn stared at me.

“Seriously, if it had been one of my undergrads who couldn’t tell them apart, they wouldn’t have heard the end of it.”

“Like I’m not hearing the end of it?”

I made a face. Rynn might know guns, the supernatural, and mixing bar drinks, but understand the finer points of archaeology he did not. “I did that Inuit totem a favor. At least it’s appreciated and properly labeled now. You know I have a point.”

Rynn inclined his head as I pushed open the door. “A point? Yes. I’m holding judgment on whether it’s a good one. How many of those do you have exactly?” he asked, taking the ring of white cards from my hand, holding them out as if they were some morbid collection of animal feet . . . or a graveyard where lost academic security access cards went to die a slow and slightly zombified death.

I grabbed them back before he could do anything to them. “You’d be surprised,” I said.

Sensing motion, the hall lights flickered on, illuminating the 1970s off-yellow beige paint in cheap fluorescence. Now, which way was the research room?

I turned around and tried to remember which way I’d gone last time . . . there! I remembered the cracked ceiling.

I eased my way around Rynn and headed left.

I kept my ears open for any sounds, but to be honest, running into someone wasn’t at the top of my list of worries. I’d picked the time and date for a reason. At 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday, there were people milling around the museum proper, which meant that was where the sole security guard’s attention would be. As far as grad students in the research facility were concerned? Even the keeners wouldn’t be in until at least 2:00 p.m. There’s only so far dedication takes you past free overtime on a Sunday morning.

Well, that and having to put up with weekend museumgoers; they had an uncanny knack for finding your research lab on the way to the snack machine, and they just had a couple of questions . . . not that they’ve noticed your hangover and the lousy cup of coffee you’re clutching between your hands like a shield or blessed relic, the only silver lining you’ve seen this morning, but more importantly the only thing on the planet standing between you and them. . . .

“Are you sure we shouldn’t come back at night?” Rynn asked.

I shook my head. “On a Sunday, they might actually set an alarm for after hours to prevent real thieves from getting in.” Though I doubted that would apply to the graduate student section, I preferred to be careful.

“The real thieves? Please, tell me more. I’m quite curious how their patterns of behavior differ.”

I ignored him as I counted and examined the beigey-yellow doors. Behind which one was the loaner stuff? Hmmm, should be near the middle, about where the loading dock would be . . . bingo. I placed my ear against the door labeled Research and Loading Bay to see if anyone was inside. Unlikely, but it always pays to check. Never know when someone hits a Saturday-night dorm party or campus pub crawl and ends up passing out in their office watching sci-fi flicks.

Before I could swipe my card, Rynn shouldered me out of the way and listened himself. Finally, once he was convinced the room really was empty, he let me swipe the key card. I pushed open the heavy, hermetically sealed door to a large rectangular room about half the size of a tennis court. Arranged in rows down the long side were three research bays—basically tables that stretched the narrow width of the room, fitted down their length with chairs, lights, and Bunsen burners.

The most used equipment in the room, the tanks at various stages of soaking items, were balanced on the benches, bowing them in the process.

On the left wall were the fume hoods, the fans and vents above buzzing on autopilot. Interspersed amongst those were the sample tables fitted with special lights and microscopes to get a better look at, well, whatever it was you were looking at.

Now, where would I stick the Genghis exhibit? I spotted five crates, barely unpacked, on the far side of the rectangular lab, still stacked by the loading bay door. The computer tower and large monitor, however, were parked on a bench beside them.

Well, the computer and self-contained servers were up and running. At least they’d gotten that far. Saved me twenty minutes trying to get them up and running on my own.

I motioned Rynn to follow me as I headed over to see whether the rule of Genghis Khan had left any pertinent information on the Electric Samurai.

I jostled the screen and was met with a login window.

“Now what?” Rynn asked.

I checked around and under the monitor before looking behind the computer itself. Taped to the back of the tower was the operating manual and inventory manifest. I flipped open the manual. Login codes were on a yellow note that had long lost its stickiness and had been taped to the inside. I was hitting the jackpot today as far as time savers went.

I retrieved my jump drive from my jacket. I didn’t trust it with Captain, not after the phone incident. Speaking of which . . . I sat down and let Captain out of his carrier. He darted out to investigate what was around. Not that I figured on vampires showing up, but it paid to be careful. Besides, he needed the exercise.

Rynn pulled up a chair as I logged in and waited for the computer to grind on.

“Doesn’t sending the passwords with the boxes defeat the purpose of having passwords?”

I shrugged. “Well, only if you’ve actually got the computer. It can’t connect to the internet. The only way anyone is accessing these files is through this computer, and since the boxes and archives are almost constantly moving with the exhibits . . .”

“It’s a colossal problem if someone like you or Nadya wants access. Or what if some student or janitor decides to sit down and take a look? What if they pick up something dangerous?”

“First, Nadya just logs onto the Russian Archaeological Associations servers or gets a contact to deliver the information. She doesn’t burn her bridges. I do, hence the need to break in. As with regards to the janitor? Anything that dangerous is stored in some IAA vault, not passed around like a joint between research departments. And second, you’d need to know what you were looking for. To the uninitiated observer, this just looks like any old file system. Here, see for yourself.”

I let Rynn look at the screen over my shoulder. After a moment he said, “These are generic colored labels. It’s coded?”

“Give the incubus a prize.” I used the cursor to highlight the green series of folders with lettered names. “Green folders contain information that your most clever undergrad couldn’t find a supernatural element or reference under. They’re green because they’re considered clean—safe enough you could leave your volunteer students with the folders and accompanying items for a month and they still wouldn’t suspect there was a supernatural connection. Blue folders are iffy. If someone knows what to look for, or say you gave them to an astute third year, they might get suspicious by some of the text references that don’t quite match up. But the red ones”—I ran the cursor over one of the red folders labeled simply Alpha—“now, those folders will absolutely mention an artifact or text that’s related to the supernatural. Those the undergrads aren’t allowed to touch.”

“What if they open them anyway? Curiosity killing the cat and every­thing.”

“If you were them, would you believe there was such a thing as the supernatural?”

Rynn shook his head as he abandoned me to the computer in favor of opening one of the crate lids. “They’re as bad as the elves.”

“Think of it this way—no one knows the supernatural exists, so why would they look for it? Besides, if you added Fort Knox or CDC level security, someone would start looking. They’d figure we were hiding gold, jewels, a grow-op. Who knows what they’d convince themselves had to be inside.”

He furrowed his brow at me over the box he’d busied himself with. “That’s not comforting.”

“It’s not supposed to be. Remember? Bureaucrats. Look, Rynn—stop fidgeting and take a seat—I’m copying all of this, but we’re talking terabytes off a system that’s been upgraded in patches. It’ll take awhile.”

“I’d rather take a look around if it’s all the same to you.”

Rynn’s usual problem with being up close and personal to the thievery. I turned my attention back onto the file progress bars, watching as they ground along, copying onto my drive. All the images and papers that would never actually be published. Don’t break anything. And keep your eye on Captain.

The files were copying, slowly but surely, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t run a search. When starting from scratch, best to kick off with the bloody fucking obvious.

I typed magic armor into the search engine and waited as the computer spun its chips to churn out a list.

There was a lot—as in pages of mentions as far as the translations were concerned.

“Shit.” I mean, I’d expected Genghis and his ilk to have found some magic weapons and armor over the years. I’d assumed it had come down to a few pieces, but apparently that was not the case.

The Mongolian horde had created a massive empire. You didn’t do that back then without a little supernatural help. And Genghis, much like Alexander the Great, had assimilated everything in his path. The Mongols had found everything from an eleventh-century Russian cloak that allowed the wearer to turn into an animal to Korean demon hide armor.

It could take me months to sort through all of this, especially since the armor changed its appearance with each wearer.

Okay, let’s try this again. I typed in Storm Armor. No luck.

“Try Lightning Armor,” Rynn offered. I typed Lightning Armor in the search program. This time three references came up.

Now these odds I liked an awful lot better . . .

The first two I traced back to a blue folder. I opened the individual files, but they seemed to mention markings on the armor itself and the speed with which the user had been able to move. Magic, most likely, but I didn’t think that fit the description of the armor the elves wanted. I made a mental note of their location in the files anyway; I’d have a longer look later.

The third reference, though, now that was the doozy. I whistled. “Jackpot,” I said, and opened up the file, then waited for Rynn to join me.

Subatai Jebe, or General Jebe. “Now this one, this is interesting. Do you know much about Genghis Khan’s army?”

Rynn shook his head. “Northern Europe. By the time stories of the horde reached us they’d been muddled with the retellings.”

What people must have done in the days without cell phones and internet . . .hearing your news in stories and having no idea if it was real or if some asshole was trolling the unknown world.

“Well, Jebe was unique. He was one of Genghis’s four generals, or ‘dogs’ as they were nicknamed. He also was known as ‘the Arrow.’ Jebe wasn’t like the other generals. He started out on the other side and was recruited by Genghis after almost killing him with an arrow to the neck.”

“He made him his general?” Rynn sounded skeptical of the decision. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

I inclined my head. “Not quite. Jebe was good. Really good. Let’s face it, he was on the opposite side and almost managed to orchestrate an end to Genghis’s reign.”

“Most warlords would kill such an opponent to maintain order in an army like that.”

“Ah, but you’re thinking of a figurehead, like a king or a noble who is put in a place of power or inherits it from their forefathers. Genghis was the director of his own orchestra of mayhem and destruction. His horde terrorized the Asian continent and eastern Europe. He didn’t have anything to prove to anyone—and Jebe had the balls to admit he was the one who shot Genghis in the neck.” I shrugged. “Honesty and loyalty are hard to come by. Probably worth more to Genghis by that point than the fact that he’d been born on the other side.” Rynn didn’t look convinced, so I added, “Think of it like a corporate takeover. Jebe was the best up-and-comer on your rival company’s roster. You could take over the company and scuttle him, or do the smart thing and hire him. Genghis went the hiring route. This time,” I added. There were plenty of cases when he’d gone the marauding evil army route as well. Maybe he had a karma thing going—50 percent of the time kill everyone, 50 percent of the time let everyone live.

“Humans never cease to surprise me.”

“Why? Because we can occasionally put our own hate and indignation aside when we can see a use for something?”

“No. Because no supernatural I know of, except maybe a dragon, would be able to put its own passions aside to consider the alternative.”

I turned my attention back to the file contents. “What about incubi? You’re pretty even-tempered.”

“Not so much with other supernaturals. It can be hard to put aside . . .” He paused, as if searching for a word. “. . . past transgression. It’s complicated. It’s why we tend not to surround ourselves with other supernaturals for prolonged periods of time. It’s not often you see succubi and incubi traveling or working together for more than a few decades at most. In your words, we tend to piss each other off. If you’re smart, you part ways before that happens.”

“And if you don’t? Didn’t you say your cousin had a troupe of them or something?”

He inclined his head. “Then you end up like Artemis—with problems and well over a hundred years’ worth of hate and grudges built up.”

The more I gleaned about Rynn . . . half of me wanted to keep him talking, but the other half?

The file was a translation, along with the original documents that had been scanned in. “This is an account detailing General Jebe and two of the other dogs’ parts in the downfall of the Khwarezmian Empire.” Rynn shook his head, and I continued. “Ah, second Persian empires, Muslim dynasties? During the Middle Ages they held parts of Persia—Iran, Afghanistan. Basically they controlled the lower half of the Caspian Sea and a swath of the Persian Gulf. They were a silk road choke point between the Mediterranean and Europe and Genghis’s empire.” A trade route Genghis had wanted very badly.

“Brilliant general perhaps, but not a ruler. Why didn’t he barter for trade instead of razing an empire? It would have set trade back a century.”

“Because the shah sent back the head of Genghis’s ambassador in a bag. Apparently he took offense to Genghis sending a Muslim.” I scrolled through the document’s translation. “Takes two to be civilized, Rynn. This is one of the original accounts of the entire invasion into Persia written by one of the horde’s scribes—everything from the number of people killed to accounts of all the loot taken.”

I frowned. This was the kind of document that was usually on display in the museum’s public exhibit, meaning it had to list the supernatural items. I scrolled through until I found them—jewelry, sacrificial bowls, swords . . .

And there was my magic suit of armor.

“The scribe makes a footnote about the suit. Claims Jebe found it while they were sacking the capital, Samarkand, near the end of the campaign. It was mixed in with the shah’s treasures.”

I ran the time line through my head. The first Persian empire sacked Babylonia and parts of western Europe while the Roman Empire was still going strong . . .

Times like this I wish I had a photographic memory. “Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t Persia and Rome locked in battle for a few hundred years?—after and during Caligula?”

Rynn inclined his head. “I wasn’t around for the majority of it, though Artemis might have been—not that he’s in any state to answer questions about much of anything these days.”

“But the suit disappeared, and considering it has a mind of its own and a penchant for violence, what better place to run to? It’s got a pattern. The Storm Warrior legend first appears around 150 BC in Japan. My guess is it reached the continent through Korea, found itself a couple nice wars, got some traveling and sightseeing done across northern Asia until it fell into the hands of the early Vikings, again for who knows how long. It reaches Ireland, where you have your next eyewitness account from Boadicea. It falls into the hands of the Romans, where Artemis and you encountered it. From there, a few more battles lost to history and time, and it’s right on Persia’s doorstep. Persia enters a time of relative peace, so the suit has nothing better to do than sit around in a vault—that is, until Genghis and Jebe come along.”

“And the violence begins all over again.”

The scribes’ account of the suit as the invasion progressed read like a journal of sorts. It wasn’t a diary; you had to find the entries between accounts of sacking towns and cities for slaves, food, and gold and how it was all divvied up, but there were glimpses and comments about Jebe’s state of mind and the suit throughout.

Things started off fine. The horde continued their incursion and, with Jebe’s newfound armor, defeated one town after the other, collecting the spoils. His men began calling him the “Lightning Arrow” on account of the electricity that danced across the plates before battle.

I skimmed—I didn’t care about things going right, I cared about things going horribly wrong.

It didn’t take me long to find it.

As the war with the Poles and Russians progressed, the scribes began noting changes in Jebe, who was by all accounts an even, patient general, but who had become impatient and volatile. Little things at first—lapses of temper, punishing his men for small infractions, jumping into battle before all of his intelligence was delivered, not something Genghis and his men were known to do. At first it earned little more than a footnote, but as the army progressed north, that changed.

“The cracks start to show outside Kiev,” I said to Rynn. Rynn peered over my shoulder. “A battle with losses, more than Jebe was used to.”

I nodded. They’d come upon a walled city. The Mongols didn’t do well in close city quarters; their strength was being on horseback with ranged bows. Usually they put the town to siege, starved everyone out. But this time the general didn’t have the patience. They won—with heavy losses. “After that, Jebe’s temper only got worse, more volatile and reckless. He started to take pleasure in humiliating and torturing his foes.” The scribe noted he also stopped taking the armor off after that.

Bad tactical decisions, poor battle plans. He’d become so caught up in the killing that he’d stopped being a general. “The suit is its own worst enemy.”

Wait—that was it.

“It still doesn’t tell us where the armor ended up,” Rynn said.

I shook my head. “My point isn’t that this tells us where it is. My point is a question we haven’t asked. Why doesn’t it ever stay in one place? There was plenty of fighting in the Roman Empire for the next few centuries, not to mention northern Europe and the Celtic clans, yet the armor appears sporadically—sometimes hundreds of years apart. Why?”

Rynn arched an eyebrow at me. “You clearly have an opinion.”

“I think it’s doing more than looking for the next, nearest, biggest fight. If that were the case, it never would have left Japan and Korea. I think it needs the right wearer—so much so it had to propel itself across the entire ancient world.”

Another thought occurred to me. “We assumed it was evil from the start because it burns up its host. If the host is that specific, that rare . . . Back in the ancient world, wars would have been the easiest way to find a large pool of people.”

“And eventually the need for a host and violence entwined, warping whatever it started out as.”

“And unless there’s a war nearby, when it eventually kills the wearer . . .”

“. . . it has nowhere to go but a treasure room,” Rynn finished.

That was the problem with magic artifacts and supernatural weapons—­they might be powerful, but there was always a price and always a weakness.

Rynn swore in supernatural and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m about ready to tell the elves and Lady Siyu where they can shove the armor.”

“There’s another option I’m thinking we have,” I said. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s always keep your eye out for the back door.

He gave me a skeptical look. I poked at the screen and the item inventory that went with the translated documents. “Jebe—he wore it, the suit picked him. And someone was nice enough to document the entire campaign until it either killed him or someone figured out a way past its defenses. Our other choice is to figure out what the hell it is the elves want with it.” Once you know what someone’s end game is, negotiations get so much more interesting. Regardless, the first concrete clues would be in here.

Rynn still wasn’t appeased. “And if we can’t figure out what it is they want? You don’t know them like I do, Alix. You know one of them, who by elven standards is semi-tolerable and apparently clueless to internal politics.”

“I thought they were neutral?”

“Exactly—neutral. They haven’t made waves during the past five hundred years that Mr. Kurosawa and his predecessors have been in charge, but mark my words, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a large faction of elves that enjoyed playing gods throughout Europe during the Roman Empire and Middle Ages as much as the other side did. If things hadn’t shifted, they’d still have human slaves underfoot, just like they used to, and they’d still be chasing after minor infractions and protocol violations. Just because on the surface they have a handful of traits your kind consider admirable doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of rotten ones running the show underneath.”

“Then if we can’t find out what it is they plan to do with it, we do the next best thing. They said they wanted the suit but didn’t specify what condition it had to be in, correct?”

He gave me a wary nod.

“We figure out a way to make the suit unusable.”

He wasn’t convinced. “If we find the suit, if we find a way to disarm it—that’s a lot of ifs, Alix.” His eyes drifted to something behind me, on the screen. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” I searched the lists, but I didn’t see anything beyond the war trail accounts.

“Not there. The thumbnail, on the side.” He reached over my shoulder and tapped one of the comments made by a previous grad student. Sure enough, attached to the notes was an embedded icon—a link to a longer set of notes contained in the folder . . . and it was directly related to a passage about the suit.

I clicked on it and waited for the second window to open. It was a brief two-page analysis on a section of the records I hadn’t gotten to yet—the records of a later campaign into what’s now Poland. But as opposed to discussing the locations or items looted, the grad student entry talked about something else entirely. It was only two lines, but it was about a possessed suit of armor that drove Jebe to madness . . . and it cross-referenced Jebe’s journal.

Son of a bitch, Jebe kept a journal while he had the suit. Jackpot. I needed that journal. I searched the computer for the journal file and found it. . . .

There was nothing inside. “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Someone had erased the fucking soft copies. I opened up another window to see when the files had been removed; maybe if I was lucky they were still in the trash.

“What?”

“Jebe’s journal. The entire entry is gone—photos, the documentation . . . everything!” I frowned at the screen. “That can’t be right.” I turned to look at Rynn. “This says the files were erased from the hard drive twenty minutes ago.” Right before we got here.

Rynn and I both clued in at the same time. “Someone knew we were coming—someone who doesn’t want us finding that suit. They must have been watching us, or had an informant from the casino.”

Goddamn son of a . . . “They must have found out about Mr. Kurosawa signing a deal with the elves.” If the other side of the supernatural war figured the tide was about to turn in Mr. Kurosawa’s favor . . .

“Whoever it is, they do not wish us to find it.”

Or worse, they wanted it for themselves. I went back to the hard copy and started to search the inventory list. Twenty minutes—that meant they might not have had time to track down the journal itself. It might still be here. “Rynn, I need you to check box 3A.” Please, please say they didn’t make off with the original . . .

“Alix, if I were them I’d make sure you didn’t have enough time to find it . . .” He trailed off as an alarm began to sound elsewhere in the building—not the fire alarm, which was designed to get people to leave as fast as possible, but the other kind, the one that says a door’s been left open, or broken . . .

“Time’s up,” Rynn said.

I swore and turned back to the computer screen. The files were almost finished copying. There was something in Jebe’s journal; there had to be, and I very much planned on finding out what it was. “Find that journal.”

“Is this it?” Rynn held up a leather-bound book that had been wrapped in a set of packing cloths. I took a quick look through it and shook my head. “No—this is the account keeping, not the journal. Keep looking.” Maybe they hid it in the room. That wouldn’t be stealing, just misplacing, and if the journal got left behind when the crates moved . . .

The files finished copying, so I pulled out my thumb drive and shoved it back into my pocket.

“Well what is it I’m supposed to be looking for then?” Rynn said.

“How am I supposed to know? They deleted all the pictures and descriptions!”

I grabbed the inventory list and rifled through to the packing sheets. Box 3A . . . 3A . . . there it was . . . I found Jebe’s journal halfway down the page. “Ah, should be packed in the bottom drawer, a metal box labeled ‘journal’ and decorated with yellow tape. Look underneath the tray of arrows. No, not that one,” I said as Rynn pulled out a metal box labeled with yellow and white tape. “The other one, should be . . . ah . . .” I consulted the packing slip again. “Underneath where you found that one.”

Rynn pulled the right one out and tried to replace it with the other. “No! Don’t put them back in the wrong order!”

Rynn glared at me as he put the right metal box on the table.

“It’s important—you have no idea how easily that stuff gets lost.” The incredulous look didn’t dissipate. “Look, you’ve never opened a box only to find the thing you needed went missing. Oh, for . . . I don’t need to explain proper artifact curation to you, just open the damn box so I can steal the book.” I realized there was a large dose of hypocrisy in that statement, but we were getting short on time.

Rynn popped open the metal latches and I heard the air seal break. He frowned and held it up. “Empty,” he said, and showed it to me.

No, no, no . . . I ran over to check the box. It should have been in a wrapped plastic bag; maybe someone’s idiot grad student hadn’t bothered to put it back in the case.

There was nothing loose in the crate. Everything, including the dusting kits, was immaculately tucked in their places.

“Son of a bitch!” I slammed the top of the crate down. “They took it. They beat us here and took the journal.”

I couldn’t believe it. So close again. A dark black pit settled inside me, and for the first time in a while I wanted to throw something, break something. I deserved to find that journal. I saw red as my eyes fell on the computer. I bet they made a great shattering sound—and who knows? Maybe I’d find the missing files inside . . .

I thought I heard Rynn call my name over the alarm, but I was so furious, so angry . . .

I might have gone through with breaking the computer if Captain hadn’t started to bleat . . .

Even through my anger I saw he had his nose pressed in the space between a bench and the wall. Normally I wouldn’t make anything of it—there were plenty of bugs and rodents to keep Captain’s interest—but the way he was twitching his nose and his tail, and sniffing at the air as if he was trying to figure out what it was . . .

There was no way I was that lucky.

“Rynn, get me something thin,” I said as I ran over to the bench. Captain let out a bleat, the same noise he made around any supernatural who wasn’t a vampire.

“Why would they hide it?”

“Who cares? We can worry about that later, after we have Jebe’s journal.”

Rynn passed me a broom handle and I lost no time shoving it between the benches. Something was definitely back there—it moved as soon as I touched it with the handle.

I swore as I heard multiple footsteps coming down the hall. They should have spent way more time clearing the exhibits. Whoever had sounded the alarms must have also included a helpful call to security.

“Alix, we’re out of time—and a hallway. We’ll need to find another way out.”

“Gimme a second.” The book moved a few more inches. I pushed Captain away as he tried to wiggle in and help.

Come on, come on . . . don’t tear, not now . . .

I heard the electronic lock click open as someone swiped their card, followed by the rattle as they tried the handle, which I’d manually locked.

The wonders of light-sensitive experiments: they’d had to design the manual locks to override the electronic in all the labs.

“You don’t have a second,” Rynn whispered.

I reached my hand in up to my shoulder. The tips of my fingers brushed it. “Then make me one!”

Rynn swore, ran to the door as they tried swiping the card again, and relocked the door. The card was swiped again, and yet again Rynn reset the lock. I heard the chime as the key card was swiped a third time, this time followed by “Is anyone in there? Campus security.”

Maybe I got lucky and they’d left their manual keys in their office?

I heard the muffled jingle of keys.

Nope. Why wouldn’t the goddamned book come out—there!

“Got it!” I whispered as the book slid into my fingers. I dragged it out of its hiding spot and started flipping through the old pages carefully, ever so carefully. . . .

Medieval Mongolian dialects weren’t my forte, but I could make out enough of the characters to read, “ ‘I am Zurgadai of the Besud Clan, also known as Jebe, the Arrow of Ghengis Khan.’ ” I closed it shut and fit it into my backpack. I then held it open for Captain. He mewed at me. “Inside. You’ll get a treat after,” I whispered.

He sat on his haunches and curled his tail around his legs, sniffing at me. Yeah, I got it; he’d had bad luck getting into carriers of late. “Listen, unless you want to end up back with Lady Siyu—I promise, treats. After!”

He sniffed at me again, but whether he decided my tone meant business or he was just bored with the lack of a food dish and litter box, he caved and crawled in.

Finally. I zipped up the bag and tossed him on my back as carefully as speed allowed. Normally I wouldn’t put something like the journal in there with him; Captain had spent most of his life as a wild cat out by the Egyptian pyramids, so he tended to stake out territory—places, people, things. I just hoped he didn’t decide to take any residual anger out on the book.

I turned to Rynn as the banging on the door intensified.

“You’re the thief,” he whispered. “Do something.”

I took a quick perusal of the room for alternative exits. Windows were too suspicious to any bystanders. Now, the loading bay door, that was another matter entirely.

I ran to the cargo bay door and found the latch. Wonder of wonders, it was only locked shut by a set of bolts.

I undid both of them and used my back to get the door open enough to crawl under while Rynn played lock footsies with the security guards.

I checked under the metal loading bay door to make sure the coast was clear. Our luck held out. No one was waiting for us—or even looking our way.

I waved to Rynn. He waited until the guards had unlocked the door, locked it for a last time, then ran. He baseball-slid under the garage door lip, and both of us dropped the four feet to the cracked concrete below. Rynn crouched down and turned his head to the side, listening for something. Satisfied it was safe, he nodded that the coast was clear. “Wait,” I hissed as Rynn started away from the building.

“They’ll be in the lab any minute, Alix. They were rebooting the system.”

Which meant the locks would reset and open. “Just trust me.” I slid my hands under the door, and carefully, as quietly as was humanly possible, I eased the loading door back down.

The bolts would give it away, but if luck held they wouldn’t notice for a while.

I started backing away, Rynn beside me. Running would attract attention on a university campus, but we needed to walk away quickly before the guards figured to check around back or get a buddy in the office to do it.

I turned to Rynn. He was the one with mercenary tendencies, after all, and navigating security and getting away were his specialties. “What now?”

He inclined his head. “Head to the jeep. With any luck no one will spot us.”

“With any luck?”

He frowned at me. “This is a university—a little out of my experience. It’s not like they follow any real best practices when it comes to security—it’s a bit like dealing with a two-year-old. With that much inexperience and incompetence comes unpredictability.”

I shook my head and grabbed his arm. “Come on. This way,” I said, and started out of the loading bay. We kept an even pace until we turned the corner. Free and clear . . . so far so good. I crossed my fingers inside my pocket that that was in fact the case.

As we headed down the empty promenade, I checked a couple times to see if anyone was following behind. No one was.

We were halfway to the car lot where we’d left the jeep. We were passing by a copse of maple trees left to grow in a ring in the center of the road when there was a piercing howl in my ear, followed by hissing and scuffing at the inside of my backpack.

Shit. Both Rynn and I scanned the area as Captain tried to claw his way out of my bag. When that didn’t work, he let out another ear-­piercing howl. Damn it, his claws were going to destroy the journal.

“No, Captain. You’re not getting out of there to eat vamp—Ow!” I yelped, and madly tried to get my bag off my back as Captain dug his claws into my spine.

While I tried to pry Captain off, Rynn found the source of his ­fury—­a pink-hoodie-clad woman in beige cargo pants, wearing a pair of heavy sunglasses. A shock of blond hair peeked out from under the hood, which was pulled up high and covered most of her face.

And she was not happy at having been found. “Hey!” came a high Valley Girl voice as she struggled against Rynn. “Let go of me!”

If I hadn’t recognized the voice, the scent of rotting lily of the valley that wafted my way and the surfer girl getup would have given it away.

Rynn pulled the hood down, exposing her face, and dragged her to the edge of the shade from the trees, just short of the sunlight. I did my best to wrangle Captain.

Bindi. Alexander’s most recent lackey acquisition.

“What are you doing here and why shouldn’t I kill you?” Rynn asked, leaning in and using his more menacing voice.

“That’s two questions,” Bindi whined. “Which one do you want me to answer first?”

“I guess you’ll have to guess which answer is least likely to convince me to kill you.”

Bindi made a sound halfway between an exasperated sigh and a whine. “Look, I’m not here to do anything. Okay, okay!” she said as Rynn’s hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Fine. I was thinking about it, but come on— Vampire? What do you expect?”

I closed my eyes. I’d managed to finally get my backpack off my back, but Captain was still trying to get out, though now that he could see Bindi his howls had quieted to a continuous growl.

“I’m here for a reason other than trying to kill Owl. Promise!”

“What are you here for then?”

“Alexander sent me!” she whined.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Alexander has tried to kill Alix not once, not twice, but three times now.”

“But not this time. I promise.”

And closing my eyes wasn’t going to make Bindi go away. Goddamn it, why did vampires have to squeeze themselves in everywhere? I opened them back up to find Rynn looking at me, eyebrows raised. “Well?” he said, and I realized he’d asked me something while I’d been lost in my musings on the problems with vampires. “Do you want to hear what she has to say or not?”

One thing was certain as I gave Bindi a once-over. She looked scared more than murderous, though that might have been Rynn. From the way Captain had focused himself on her, pressing his face as far as it would go against the mesh, he didn’t think there were any other vampires around.

“Alix?” Rynn asked again.

And we sure as hell couldn’t stand around here forever.

I nodded. Rynn let her go. “Finally!” Bindi said, and stumbled back away from the sunlight further under the protection of the shade of the trees. She pulled her hood back up, tucking her surfer blond hair underneath. “Seriously—” she started, but I cut her off.

“Your message. And whatever it is Alexander wants better be good, otherwise I’m going to rethink this whole chat real fast.”

“Okay, okay.” She took a breath and tried to compose herself. Not easy to do with my cat making his feelings well and vocally known. Bindi shot the carrier a concerned look before saying, “Alexander says that you have a common interest and he wants to help you. He wants to call a truce. A real one this time.”

Fat chance Alexander was going to help anyone, especially me. Not after the fiasco in Ephesus, or Bali, and especially not after L.A.

I sighed and turned to Rynn. “It might just be easier to give her to Captain. I mean, it’ll shut him up—”

“No not the cat!” Bindi shrieked. “Honest, I’m telling the truth. ­Alexander really does want to help you. Look, if you let me reach into my pocket, I’ll get his message out!”

I nodded at Rynn. He was the one who approached to take the message from her, while I took a step back further out of range of the lily-of-the-valley-scented pheromones that acted like a narcotic. It weakened humans and made vampires look pretty. It was also more addictive than heroin. I had a gas mask, but it would draw too much attention if anyone walked by.

Rynn took the note and, after sniffing it for the pheromones, brought it to me.

It was an off-white card, addressed to me with flowery gold script. Definitely Alexander’s style.

I opened it.

Dear Owl,

Though I’m certain this proposed truce will come as a shock to you as much as it has to my superiors, it is—suffice it to say—necessary. Though you may find this hard to believe, we vampires rather enjoy not being hunted, nor do we appreciate the idiots after a source of immortality. Much as I enjoy her work, the famous vampire writer did not do us any favors.

I have information that you need, but I am not trusting it to Bindi. Suffice it to say it is information that you will most certainly want concerning a number of supernaturals we’ve both had dealings with recently and the humans who are currently under their sway. Call me at the number below and I will explain more.

PS: Oh yes, and please have your incubus let the girl go. I’ve grown rather attached to my assistant. Selfish and obtuse in that way you Americans seem so fond of—very much like one of those characters on your horrid reality TV shows. But, she has her uses.

It was signed Alexander in flourishing script and, as promised, a number was included below.

I shook my head and gave the note to Rynn.

The worst part was it made sense. Rynn had said as much about the vampires. They might be cockroaches of the supernatural world, but they were also one of the most vulnerable to humans—if they found out. It was logical that Alexander and the rest of the vampires really didn’t want anyone knowing they existed, as much as they enjoyed eating and enslaving people.

Minor thug versus career criminal. Goddamn it, I was actually buying it.

Meanwhile, we still had Bindi to deal with. Rynn was waiting for me to throw in my two cents.

“Well, we sure as hell can’t trust her,” I said. Despite the fact that she was a vampire, she was bat shit crazy and a serial killer. But on her own? Cowering in front of Rynn? As much as I’d like to see her suffer for killing innocent people, it didn’t seem very sporting to let Rynn hurt her.

Besides, it would just give Alexander another excuse for his vendetta against me.

Against my better judgment, I was certain, I nodded.

Rynn jerked his head at Bindi. “Get lost. And if I see you again—” He left the threat open.

Bindi glared at both of us in turn as she gave her neck one last rub. I wasn’t going to have Rynn kill her, but like hell was I going to feel bad about a few bruises. Serial killer.

She pulled her pink hood down and readjusted her sunglasses before taking off at a jog for the shaded forest trails. “Later losers,” she called out over her shoulder at us just before disappearing under the trees.

Rynn shook his head. “Later losers? Why is it the gutter trash are always the ones who do well as vampires?”

That I couldn’t agree with more. “Probably has something to do with the bottom feeder supernatural part of the ecosystem they inhabit.” I nodded toward the parking lot. Time to get out of here before whoever had tried to set us up figured out we had Jebe’s journal.

“You’re considering it, aren’t you?” Rynn said, waving Alexander’s note. “Don’t answer that. I can tell.”

“At this point, I’m willing to take just about any help we can get.”

Rynn didn’t disagree. “I think I know just the place. Somewhere not even the elves’ best spies could listen in. ”