Free Owl and the Japanese Circus by Kristi Charish

honesty . . . that Westerners always ignore.
    Just think, anytime you head out to a bar in the Western Hemisphere, you expect that maybe you’ll talk to someone, maybe you’ll have a good time, or maybe everyone will just ignore you and you’llhead home feeling worse than if you’d just sat on your couch playing World Quest. A hundred bucks later.
    Well, what if you could take that hundred bucks, double it, and guarantee you’d have a great time talking to someone who was interested in what you had to say for a few hours? It’s an interesting question.
    Anyway, Nadya loves Gaijin Cloud and tries to go at least once a week, more often twice. It’s not the most popular, since it caters to a mixed crowd, so it’s not obvious it’s a host bar at first. When I was kicked out of grad school and effectively homeless, Nadya let me crash with her in Japan for a few months. She insisted on it, even sent me the plane ticket. While I was trying to figure out what the hell to do with the rest of my life, Nadya dragged me out almost every night to Gaijin Cloud. That’s how I met Rynn.
    I’d just been fired. Well, no, that’s not entirely accurate. In exchange for saying, “No, I was wrong, none of the data in that report was falsified, the postdoc and supervisor still remain god apparent, I’m a bad grad student,” I had been verbally promised funding for the next four years and a coveted transfer to the lost city dig site in Ephesus, Turkey. Right after I’d signed the paperwork that had legally absolved the university and my supervisor of any wrongdoing, all my funding had been terminated and my transfer had disappeared.
    University departments have no soul.
    Anyway, out of misguided passion for archaeology and love of academia, I’d decided to stick it out, even when I’d known the postdoc had been falsifying data to hide a supernatural mummy from our supervisor. Lesson learned; don’t ever be a whistle-blower. . . . I really need to follow Nadya’s advice more often.
    I’d met Rynn right after I’d screwed myself over in Paris with the vampires and had been doing my best to drink away the memories of screaming Frenchmen with fangs and a vampire vaporizing into dust. I’d not been in the mood to party. Rynn had been the new bartender. You see a lot of blonds in Japan, Japanese and Caucasian, but youdon’t often see good-looking blond Caucasian men working behind the bar. It was an anomaly, and I’d been halfway to drunk.
    “Wow, you’ve got to have an edge on the competition in here,” I’d finally said as he’d stopped by to refill my glass. I’d lost count by that point.
    He’d shrugged. “Some. Though you’d be surprised how fast the novelty wears off. Not a lot of regulars.” He’d nodded towards Nadya, who’d been flirting with a cute Japanese boy who’d managed to get his hair dyed fire-engine red. “Friend of yours?”
    I’d nodded.
    “Is she one of the regulars?” he’d asked.
    “Wow, you really haven’t been working here long,” I’d said, and drained half my glass.
    Rynn had given me a once-over. “You’ve gone through half a five-hundred-dollar bottle in less than twenty minutes.”
    “Damn, I’ll have to catch up.”
    One of his blond eyebrows had shot up. “You’ve either had a bad night or you’re planning on running out on a tab.” He’d leaned over the bar and given me one hell of an evil eye. “Bad things happen to people who run out on my tabs.”
    There was a faint accent, noticeable when he spoke full sentences. My money was on Russian. I’d raised the glass, pulled out five hundred dollars plus tip, and counted it out in front of him. “Now please be a dear and bring me my bottle so I can finish getting drunk.”
    He’d disappeared and brought back my champagne. I’d been ready for a refill, so he’d obliged.
    “I’m Rynn,” he’d said, and offered me his hand.
    “Owl.”
    Instead of saying something about my unusual name, he’d said, “You