“This whole place looks like pig sty.” Tinker picked her way slowly through the garbage. The pain made it hard to keep her footing while maintaining her shield. She was losing track of the fight around her. “What’s the deal with this mess?”
“This is a sleeping nest.” Riki watched her nervously. “I’ve never seen one this disgusting before.”
“If the kids are tied up somewhere in here, they’ll be difficult to spot,” Tinker said.
“Gods forbid.” Riki fired off more shots. “The only reason they’d be in here is the greater blood had no more use of them.”
The other teams came spilling into the sleeping nest. They spread out, weaving through the litter, looking for oni. Tinker started toward the only visible door on the warehouse’s back wall. A dozen steps forward and she nearly tripped over a small body, half-hidden in an avalanche of trash.
She recoiled with fear, seeing only a snarling face. Riki shot it twice before either of them realized it was already dead.
“What is it?” Tinker asked. The creature was smaller than any oni she seen before. It had a pig-like snout, sharp tusks, and was covered with coarse hair. It was wearing only a loincloth and a bandolier filled with fat shells for the grenade launcher lying beside it.
“Oni.” Riki reloaded his rifle. “Lesser blood. Very lesser.”
She kicked it for scaring her. “How did this even get to Elfhome? Did the oni put it in a dog crate to get it halfway across Earth and through EIA checkpoints?”
“It was born here,” Riki stripped off the bandolier and picked up the grenade launcher. “This is a whelping pen. The Greater Bloods brought females that could pass as human to Elfhome via Chinese visas. The father of that thing was probably one of the wild boars locked up outside.”
She’d been so focused on getting through the trash while keeping up her shields that she hadn’t thought about why the oni would have animals kenneled in the middle of the city. She shuddered. “What logical reason would you mate a female to a wild boar?”
Riki passed the piglet’s weapon and ammo to one of his warriors. “These hybrids reach maturity faster than humans. Think of Chiyo; her pregnancy will run less than two months, not the nine months of a human. Within a decade, her puppies would be ready to breed.”
Tinker flinched at Riki using the word “puppies” for Chiyo’s children but she’d seen the mating; the warg father had been pure animal. Chiyo already had fox ears and a tail—how human could her offspring possibly be?
“This is why the oni are hiding instead of fighting,” Riki said. “They’re immortal like the elves; they can afford to play the waiting game. The longer they wait, the stronger they become. Within a few decades, they’ll easily outnumber the elves in this area. In thirty or forty years, they could have several million of their kind in Pittsburgh.”
“Millions?” Tinker scoffed. “Even with a generation a decade, do they really have the numbers to hit that mark?”
“Do you think that the humans will be left out of their plans forever?” Riki asked. “There are sixty thousands humans in Pittsburgh but with the exception of these EIA soldiers, they’re sitting on the sidelines, watching. The Greater Bloods know that if the humans took up arms, it could tip the scales in the elves’ favor, so they’re leaving the humans alone. When the time is right—maybe as long as a decade from now—they’ll kill all the men and turn all the women into breeders.”
Tinker stared at him in horror. “You can’t be serious.”
“This is a war to the bitter end,” Riki said. “The only ones that don’t know this are the humans. If the elves lose, then the humans will end up like the tengu.” He lifted his foot and flexed his bird-like toes. “Remember, we were once human.”
She knew the oni well enough to recognize the truth in what he was saying, but she didn’t want to believe it. “So—we’re going to find oni children in here?”
“That is one of the oni children.” Riki pointed at the dead tusked oni. “It’s about nine years old. Don’t worry—all the other oni ‘children’ will do their damnedest to kill us too.”
#
She had just reached the door when a shout went up from the other corner of the sleeping nest. One of the marines waved and flashed a series hand signals that Tinker didn’t recognize.
“Domi, no.” Pony blocked her from moving closer to the discovery. “You do not need to see this.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“The oni killed one of the children,” he said. “A female.”
Tinker wavered, not wanting to see the dead female, but feeling like she should force herself to look. She looked down at her arm. The only thing she’d done the entire fight was keep it locked into one position. It hurt so bad she felt like crying. “I feel so useless.”
Stormsong scoffed. “If you were useless, there would not be nearly a hundred warriors in this filthy hole. We would still be trying to beat the information out of the oni and failing.”
Pony hugged her. “Beloved, there is nothing you can do for this child. Focus on the ones that might be still alive.”
#
Beyond the back door was a maze of halls and small rooms. Tinker pushed the oni down the hallways with her shield and the sekasha. The other teams fanned out behind her, searching the rooms. Reports came back of weapon lockers, food caches, another animal kennel, and a “breeding room” that she so did not want to see. Arguments started to flare up as the tengu looted anything valuable.
“Damn thieving crows.” The marine commander muttered to her at one point, apparently unaware that they were her beholden.
Shouts in Elvish dragged Tinker back a dozen feet where Riki was blocking the door to a large outdoor courtyard. Wood smoke drifted in through the open door, scented with roasting meat. Smoke and heat rolled up from crude fire pits of cinderblock, rebar and corrugated metal. Clear of burnable trash, the courtyard was strewn with broken pallets, split wood, full logs, and well-gnawed bones.
“What’s wrong?” Tinker asked.
“My people will search this area,” Riki said.
“Why yours?” The marine commander demanded. “Why can’t mine do it?”
Riki looked to Tinker for appeal. “It’s the kitchen. The oni eat—the oni consider children a delicacy. It would be kinder, if they butchered one of the children, for us to recover the body.”
The looks on elves’ face were enough for Tinker to say, “Yes, do it.”
#
Deep in the maze, the constant pain of maintaining her shields caught up with her. One moment she was on her feet, and then she was in Pony’s arms, face pressed against the strong column on his neck.
“You need to rest, domi.”
She swore. “We don’t have time for this.”
“We need to let our rearguard to catch up with us. We’re spread too thin.”
Only then she realized that there were only a handful of the royal marines with them. The rest were scattered somewhere behind them. She couldn’t argue with his logic. With the marines covering their retreat, he carried her back to a smaller room they’d already passed. The room had been so obviously void of both oni and children that they had only given them a quick scan. He settled on a tufted leather bench so she could rest in his arms, safe within his shields.
“We’re going to need to be deloused after this,” Tinker grumbled, frustrated by her weakness. Bad enough to be wading through the trash, sitting down was making her skin crawl. She eyed the bench suspiciously and realized that it was surprisingly clean. In fact, now that she looked closely, they weren’t surrounded by the normal oni filth. The litter here was entirely different; it was expensive, luxury clutter. There was good solid ironwood furniture buried under heaps of furs, bags of United States bills and Elfhome coins, and cascades of jewelry. The floor was scrubbed clean, covered with oriental rugs, and then stacked high with weavings, paintings, and electronics. If anything, the room looked like a warehouse of loot.
“Huh,
what is this? A treasure room?”
“I am not certain, domi.”
The tengu were going to be overjoyed, probably much to the annoyance of the elves and the humans. Much as she hated the thought, she should assign someone the job of cataloging the loot so it could be divided among the three groups. Perhaps the EIA could send an accountant over.
The shadows stirred and suddenly moved.
Pony jerked to his feet, moving back even as the others surged forward, swords ready.
“Put me down! Put me down!” Tinker squirmed out of his hold. She had her hand to her mouth when she recognized the lean body that snaked through the wall. “Impatience!”
“Yanananam Tinker.” The oni dragon seemed large in the room, but after fighting his near cousin, Malice, Tinker knew he was actually quite small. Still ten feet of scaled muscled body was nothing to sneeze at.
“Can we trust him?” Pony was between her and the dragon, ready for an attack. They had fought the little dragon once when Impatience was “unconscious” and lost horribly. The only reason they weren’t all killed was Impatience had come to his senses before he actually did lasting harm.
“He’s talking, so he’s sentient.” Tinker still backed up as Impatience came bounding through the clutter toward them. She would have thought, though, that Impatience would have stayed far away the oni. What was he doing at the oni whelping pens?
“Radadada aaaaah huuu ha….” Impatience leapt back suddenly. His mane rose, triggering his impenetrable shield moments before Maynard’s commandos spilled into the room.
“Hold! Hold!” Tinker shouted even as her Hand shifted to protect her from possible attack from both the dragon and the commandos.
“Tinker radadada pooookaaa aaaaah huuuuu Yutakajodo haaaaa ramaaaaanan.”
What the world was Impatience trying to tell her?
“You!” She pointed at the nearest commando. “Do you have phone?”
“Yes.” He handed it over.
“Hello?” Jin answered on the first ring.
“It’s Tinker. Here, listen to this.”
She held out the phone to Impatience.
“Naadaaan pookuu.” He reached out with his great five-clawed paw and plucked the phone out of her hand.
“No! No, don’t take it apart! God damn, how can someone that’s so smart be so stupid!” Tinker grabbed his paw and pried the phone free. “Talk! Talk!”
“Yanananan?” Jin’s tiny voice came over the phone.
Impatience cocked his head and then gave a dragon laugh of “Huuhuuhuuhuuhuu.”
“Tinker radadada pookaa,” Jin said.
Impatience launched into a long discussion and then after a minute, stopped and looked expectantly at Tinker.
Tinker put the phone back to her ear. “What did he say?”
“There is a box near you. It holds something that belongs to the greater blood, Yutakajodo. You alone should take possession of it, but do so carefully.”
“Why carefully?” Tinker asked.
“I’m not certain,” Jin said. “He’s speaking very quickly and seems to be using…slang?”
“Dragon slang?”
“Yes. Maybe. I’m getting the impression that the box might harm you if you’re not careful.”
Tinker eyed the collection of boxes piled high about the room. “How do I ask him which box?”
“Huunaaaaahaaaa.”
Tinker carefully repeated the word.
At the far end of the room, under a pile of furs, there was a large ironwood chest. The thick lid was spell-locked.
Once Tinker focused on it intently, she realized the chest buzzed against her magic sense with contained power. It felt much like getting too close to a hornet’s nest. There had to be an active spell inlaid on the back of the lid. Logically, keying open the locking spell would deactivate the hidden spell. Most likely if the lid was forced, then the active spell would trigger some kind of trap. The question was what kind of trap? A simple alarm? Or something more deadly? She spent time playing with spell-locks. She thought she might be able to pick the lock, but it might be her ego talking. She wasn’t sure how much she actually knew about magic compared to the elves themselves…
She blinked at the lock. “This is elf magic.”
Pony and Stormsong eyed the lock and nodded in confirmation.
“Transmuting wood and metal are Stone Clan magic,” Pony murmured, glancing to Thorne Scratch. “They create such chest for other clans at a steep price. The owner chooses the key when it’s made.”
It seemed unlikely that the oni would have stolen it and not tried to open it. Unblemished as it was, it seemed more likely that the elf that owned it worked with the oni.
“Could it be Sparrow’s?” Tinker asked.
Stormsong clicked her tongue in an elfin shrug. “She took advantage of the fact that none of us sekasha liked her to keep her activities hidden. I was with her most, but I don’t remember her having a chest like this.”
They would have to deal with the chest later; they needed to find the missing children. She assigned Little Egret, a half dozen of the marines, and one of the tengu the chore of getting the chest to Poppymeadow’s, and then pushed deeper into the whelping pens.
#
She was losing hope of finding any of the children alive. They reached the back of the maze to find another large courtyard with pits dug into hard packed dirt. The holes were filled with garbage, urine and feces.
“Are these their latrines?” Tinker asked. The holes seemed too big for latrines but too small for anything else.
“They’re holding pens.” One of the tengu said.
“Oh gods,” Tinker whispered as something stirred in the nearest hole and started to whimper. “Get them out!”
One of the Fire Clan marines slid down into the hole and lifted the whimpering child out. It was a male, small in comparison to the laedin-caste marine. He started to keen inconsolably once he realized he’d been rescued and was safe to finally react to his torture.
“This one needs a healer!” A female marine shouted as a limp male body was passed up from the second pit to the waiting adults. His left arm had been broken so many times it barely seemed like an arm. One of the marines produced a healing spell on a strip of paper and pressed it to the child’s barely moving chest.
“Here’s another one!” An EIA commando called from a pit near the back.
A tiny naked female was lifted, wide-eyed and desperately squirming, by the humans. She saw Tinker and lunged toward her, arms outstretched.
“It’s all right!” Tinker cried even as Thorne Scratch caught hold Pony’s sword hand. “It’s fine! She’s just scared.”
The tiny female was a patchwork of bruises ranging from violet to sickening green to pale yellow. She wrapped arms tight around Tinker and wouldn’t let go.
“She probably thinks you’re Stone Clan domana,” Stormsong murmured in English, nodding toward Thorne Scratch who had grown angry and silent.
“Quiee.” The little female said. “Quiee. Quiee.”
“What is she saying?” Tinker asked Stormsong.
Stormsong listened to a moment, and then said with great uncertainty. “Quiee?”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s what baby ducks say.” Pony said.
“Ducks say quack,” Tinker said.
“Adult ducks say quack,” Pony said. “Baby ducks say quiee.”
The little female nodded solemnly. “Quiee.”
“We’re going to have to make sure she’s not with child.” Stormsong murmured in English.
“She’s just a baby!” Tinker protested. She didn’t think elves could get pregnant until they were out of their doubles.
“If she’s over fifty, she can get pregnant,” Stormsong said gently. “Just like an eleven-year old human girl would if raped.”
Searching other pits, they found a female hiding in a mound of garbage, armed with an animal leg bone. As they were convincing the female to give up her
grisly club for one of the commando’s nightstick, Riki slipped in beside Tinker. His wings and war paint were gone and he seemed nearly human.
“I don’t want to frighten the children,” Riki said quietly in English. “If any of my people knew about this and didn’t report it, I’ll wring their necks.”
“What did you find?” Tinker asked.
“There were two children in the kitchen,” Riki said. “One had been already butchered down to roast.”
Tinker clamped down on a whimper and tightened her hold on the little female in her arms. Seven children subjected to this merely because they weren’t Wind Clan? “Someone is going to pay.”
#
Two Hands of Wyverns and a swarm of royal laedin-caste marines arrived to secure the area, apparently sent by Prince True Flame, via Maynard. After making sure that the children would be delivered to the hospice and properly treated by the Wind Clan healers, Tinker headed for the train station. Thorne Scratch was reluctant to leave the children, but once she understood Tinker’s mission, she agreed to help.
Tinker held her cold fury close as they drove back to the station in the Rolls, the smell of the pits clinging to her dress. She stalked into the building, wishing for the thousandth time that day that she could fling tanks around with a word and a gesture.
The handful of elves that ran that station came to a halt of the sight of her and sekasha.
“Which one did my cousin talk to?” Tinker growled.
“This one.” Thorne Scratch pointed out one of the male Wind Clan elves.
The male flinched back as Tinker bore down on him.
“You saw children get off the train and you did nothing to help them?” Tinker asked.
“Domi, they were not of my clan.” He said it as if it was a reasonable answer.
“They were children! You knew they were children—didn’t you?”
“Yes, domi.” The male said quietly, apparently still missing the point.
“You know that we’re at war with the oni. That the oni will kill and torture anyone they find unprotected.”
The light finally went on; it lit up a sign that read “she’s angry about something.” He started to look worried. “Yes, domi.”