Owl and the Japanese Circus Read Online Free PDF Page A

you in.
    Room service knocked. I opened the door and could smell the steak instantly. They’d even included a bottle of red wine. I started salivating. I hadn’t had a steak in months, let alone a decent bottle of red wine.
    I slid back into the hotel chair, and Captain, smelling the steak, hopped up onto my lap. There was one more message from Carpe Diem on the screen.
    By the way, sorry about all your stuff.
    Fuck.
    I pulled up my inventory screen. It, and my bag of holding, was empty. To top it off, my character, the Byzantine Thief, was standing in all her skivvy computer-generated glory. “Motherfu-ow!” I said as Captain chirped at my sudden movement and dug his claws into my leg.
    Well, this would be interesting. I’d never entered a match with my birthday suit on before. Son of a bitch.
    Carpe Diem, resident team sorcerer that he was, ported me. A flurry of in-game comments on my character’s relative nakedness greeted me. For the next few hours the only dragons and monsters I had to worry about were the ones the rest of the world worried about—the ones in a game.



2
THE TROUBLE WITH VAMPIRES
Noon-ish, the Japanese Circus
    Something rough scraped against my face, interrupting my sleep. It smelled like fish.
    I groaned and rolled over in the incredibly comfortable hotel bed, pulling the thick duvet over my head. Captain fell off the bed with an indignant chirp, and I sealed myself under the covers while I still had the chance.
    That bought me all of five seconds before he started to dig.
    “I’m so brushing your teeth,” I said.
    I swung the covers off and checked my watch. Noon. I rubbed my eyes and got up. Not fast enough for Captain, who had bypassed meowing and gone straight to death howls. Well, five hours was better than nothing.
    “Screw off,” I said, hopping to avoid tripping over him. Damn it, why do cats always wind around your legs in the morning before you’ve had any coffee?
    He followed me over to the stack of cans and didn’t let up until Idumped the contents into his plastic bowl. He dug in, and I shook my head.
    “I need to put you on a diet.”
    He meowed indignantly before digging right back in. I headed into the kitchenette and gave a little victory yelp as soon as I discovered the stocked espresso machine. I don’t like to do anything—bathe, get dressed, find breakfast, speak—before I’ve had a good jolt of caffeine. I loaded a capsule into the holder. While it spit out my coffee, I got a second capsule ready. I like my caffeine.
    By the time I was downing my second, I started putting together my strategy for the day. First, find out from Lady Siyu whether I was going to be dodging vampire lackeys; second, find breakfast. The second condition prevailed regardless of the outcome of the first, but if I was still being hunted, my options were going to be limited. That and I could get a few more hours’ sleep.
    I picked up the room’s phone, an off-white enamel number as ornate and expensive-looking as the other antiques in the room, and dialed the number Lady Siyu had left me.
    After two rings her crisp British accent answered, “Yes?”
    I rolled my eyes. In one word Lady Siyu managed to convey both irritation and a perceived superiority.
    “Hi, ah, just checking in to see where things were at—”
    “Mr. Kurosawa has completed the negotiation of terms,” she said, cutting me off. “You may leave the casino and make travel arrangements accordingly.”
    And with that, the line clicked dead.
    Well, that settled that.
    I showered, dressed, and went online to start getting my life back in order and test my new immunity. Digitally transferred funds and a few phone calls to the bank later, I was good to go. It felt weird, seeing my bank account balance for the first time in months, and the idea of actually spending my money—like a normal person. It had been a while since I’d felt anything close to normal. Ever since I’d become anantiquities thief. Well, if I was honest