Owl and the Japanese Circus by Kristi Charish Page A

everything else?” Things were going better than planned.
    “Yup, on its way.” There was a slight pause. “Are we square yet?”
    “I helped you bury two South American mummies, their slaughtered victims, and then scuttle the research.”
    “You mean forge and destroy the data.”
    “Sweetie, you want to go tell your committee you found real mummies and they killed your still-missing coworkers, go right ahead. Hell, I can help. I’ve got a buddy who can retrieve the data for you,” I said, leaving the hint of blackmail in the air. Necessary, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ll do it, but it’s the principle that bugs me.
    “No, no. I just wish I could forget stuff like that ever existed, you know?”
    “Get in line.” I felt bad for Benji. He was a good archaeologist . . . too good, and that had been his problem. He’d stumbled into something he hadn’t been able to handle, and his own integrity was eating him up inside. I could relate. Hell, that’s partly why I’m here and not at a nice cushy university. Benji was not cut out for my line of work. I still felt like I had to throw him hope.
    “One more dig site over the next two years and I promise you we’re square. Anything else after that, you can turn a profit or tell me to go to hell. Your choice.”
    He sighed. It had that defeated quality to it. “OK. Good luck with whatever you’re after. Can you do me one favor?”
    “What?”
    “Give me a heads-up if you’re ever coming within a hundred-mile radius of a dig I’m on so I have time to get the hell out.”
    “Benjamin, I’m hurt. Can’t I just have a vacation and visit a world-renowned archaeological site?”
    He snorted. “And the guy standing in the Mexican whorehouse is just visiting his sister.”
    Damn, I’d have to remember to use that later. “Thanks, Benjamin,” I said, and hung up. No sooner had I gotten my phone back in my pocket than it chimed again. I wrestled it out of Nadya’s surf shorts. DRAGON LADY flashed across the screen.
    “I thought you were making Oricho make your calls for you?” I said.
    “Oricho was not available.” From the tone of Lady Siyu’s voice, I imagined she was none too happy about that. “Kindly listen, answer my questions, and refrain from babbling.”
    I sighed. “ Fine .”
    “You believe the scroll is in Bali?”
    “No,” I said, and thought how to most concisely put it. “But the trail points to two sites there, so that’s where I’m off to.” There was a pause on the other end of the phone.
    “Are there no other options?”
    “No, there aren’t a hell of a lot of references to unknown dead scripts and two-thousand-year-old thefts from China lying around, though if you find any, I’d love to hear about them—”
    “You’re babbling again,” came her clipped response.
    I was about to end the call, except she was still talking. I put the phone back up to my ear. “Furthermore, you will refrain from travelling to Bali until I get back to you—”
    “Too late.”
    “Pardon?”
    “I said it’s too late, I’m already here and I’ve already arranged to check the sites—”
    “Neither I nor Oricho authorized that—”
    Man oh man, if one of my days could work out, just one . . . “Look, I didn’t know I needed to ask your permission before getting on a plane. My understanding is that I either retrieve the scroll for Mr. Kurosawa or I’m dragon bait, so, no offense, I plan on doing anythingI bloody well like that gets me closer to getting whatever scroll was in that damn egg—”
    “A scroll with a case.”
    “Pardon?”
    “A scroll case. Mr. Kurosawa has confirmed that the contents of the egg chamber should contain a silver scroll case with matching inscriptions.”
    It took me a second to recover. “And you couldn’t have given me that information a little sooner?” I’d have to text Nadya pronto.
    Lady Siyu didn’t bother answering my question—that wasn’t on