She led them several hundred feet deeper into the marsh. “Hold very still.” She cast another spell, second and then a third. “This way.”
From behind them there was suddenly screaming and rapid gunfire. They plunged through chokeberries, pussy willows, and nettles. There was an unnatural bridge of land through a pond filled with fairy lilies gleaming in the gathering dusk, and they stopped within sight of another towering black willow.
“Shhhh, don’t move.” Jewel whispered.
Tommy hadn’t planned on it, not even if someone set fire to his feet.
There was the deep cough of a flamethrower and dusk lit up with the sudden flare. He glanced back to see the distant tree lift up the oni with the flamethrower. It cocooned the warrior even as its massive crown caught fire. The crushing branches ruptured the weapon’s fuel tank and the entire bundle became a bright sun. The black willow seemed unable to unwrap its branches from the oni and waved the flaming ball even as it tried to back quickly away from its own limbs.
“That tree is toast.” Tommy whispered.
“I’m sending in this one.” Jewel whispered and cast a spell.
The black willow in front of them shifted as if she had prodded it hard. The world shook has it stomped toward them, and then with branches trailing over Jewel’s shield, it walked past them. Spot whimpered, burying his face into Tommy’s hair.
“Hush,” Tommy breathed. “You’re not hurt. Be brave.”
Jewel stood still, casting spell after spell, watching the black willow as it forged its way toward the burning tree.
“How did you do that?” Tommy asked.
“They like soft earth but they instinctively move away from land that’s too unstable. They can’t right themselves if they topple over.”
“You can’t let any of the oni out of this swamp alive.”
“Don’t worry. They’re all mine now.”
#
An hour later, they reached the far side of the marsh. Jewel Tear had set a total of four black willows onto the oni. By the second one, the oni were no longer giving chase but trying only to escape the marsh alive. Jewel Tear continually cast spells to keep the platoon trapped in the thick mud while herding the black willows into their midst. The gunshots and screaming decreased slowly until the swamp went silent. All that marked the oni was the burning tree and three well-fed black willows.
“You got them all?” Tommy wanted to be sure.
“Trust me.” Jewel Tear had no idea how impossible that was. “I got them all.”
#
The food bags held very little in terms of fruit and bread. Tommy didn’t want to trust the smoked meat that the oni been carrying; it could be anything from pork to human. He built a small fire and then went out to set snares for rabbits.
By the time he returned to their hidden camp Jewel Tear had worked her female magic on Spot. The boy was asleep sprawled halfway across Jewel Tear’s lap as she picked nettles out of Spot’s dark fur.
“His fur is so soft,” Jewel murmured as she ran her hand over the boy’s head. She found another little black seed caught in his fur and plucked it out.
“It’s soft because he’s young.” Tommy lit his last cigarette, dragged the smoke deep into his lungs and wished he had a whiskey to chase it. It had been a shit day. “It will shed out to coarser fur when he gets older.”
“I’ve never seen a child before.”
Tommy thought she meant “oni child” and started to bristle. Why did the elves insist that they were always “oni” and not “human?” They were equally half of each.
Jewel Tear, though, took no notice of his soft growl. “He’s so small. I don’t remember being so little, but I suppose I was.”
It was then he realized she meant “child” in general, but that didn’t seem possible. Elves weren’t adult until they were over a hundred years old. “You’ve never seen a child before?”
“They’re like mythical things. Oh, I’ve met a few older doubles at Summer Court but you can’t really count them, they’re all but adults by that time. They’re not tiny like this.”
The elves’ terror of the oni’s proliferation suddenly made a great deal more sense. Tommy couldn’t put a number to the infants he’d held, diapered, held as they died from beatings their own fathers gave them, and quietly disposed of. He was only twenty-four. To live to be more than a hundred and had never seen a child?
“Can he talk?” Jewel petted the sleeping boy like he was a puppy. “Or isn’t he old enough yet? When do children start to talk? My mother was horrified that all I did for months after I was born was laugh and cry—she thought there was something wrong with me.”
“Yes, he can talk. He’s just shy. He’s never met anyone outside our family.”
“Because of how he looks.”
“Yes.”
Jewel took Spot’s very small and human hand in hers and studied it closely. “His mother was human? Your mother’s sister?”
“Yes.”
Carefully she shifted the boy off her lap and gave his furry head one last pet. “What of his father?”
He took another drag on his cigarette and breathed out the truth. “I killed him.”
He’d never told anyone. He might have been Lord Tomtom’s bastard son, but the warriors his father had brought from Onihida were all considered royalty compared to the half-bloods born in Pittsburgh. His father would have executed Tommy if he’d found out. It had always been too dangerous to tell anyone. Tommy wasn’t even sure why he told her.
She nodded, neither shocked nor dismayed.
Tommy found himself explaining. “The oni used my mother and aunts as whores. It was safest just to suffer. But Spot’s father was more animal than most oni. He hurt my aunt badly. I had to do something.”
She watched Spot sleeping for a minute before murmuring, “It was good of you to hate the father, but love the child.”
He scoffed at the use of the word love. He cared for his family and valued them but only the weak used words like “love” and “cherish.”
Any intelligent reply he had in his head vanished when she plucked at her dress bodice to cool herself. It left him with just hard want. For a moment or two, she didn’t notice his focus. Then she realized where his gaze was riveted. She stilled, and then hooking her fingers into her bodice, she slid it down, freeing her right breast.
His hand cupped it before he even realized he had moved. It was perfection of a breast, filling his palm without overflowing, softer than silk, the nipple red and beautiful as a flower. He caressed it lightly with the pad of his thumb and her gasp made it feel like a cord had been threaded down through his body, wrapped tight around the base of his dick, and yanked tight.
He managed to stop himself inches from kissing her. She had her head tilted up, lips parted, ready for him. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
She blushed and tried to look away.
“Answer me!”
Anger flared in her eyes. “I’m fertile. I know what they did to the kitsune. They promised me the same when they got me to whelping pens.”
“So you’re using me to get yourself pregnant?”
“It’s not as if you haven’t enjoyed the process.” She snarled. “And yes, if I can fill my womb with your child, there won’t room for them to get some monster on me, no matter what they mate me with.”
Her eyes blazed at him, full of fury and determination. He had the sudden image of her knocking him down and straddling him to get what she wanted. The thought took him to his knees. She tangled her fingers tightly in his hair and pulled him to her breast. It tasted as perfect as it looked. It was even better as he watched her anger melt to pure wanton pleasure.
He had heard once that the original lords of the elves had bred the domana to be the perfect whores. He could readily believe it as he stripped her bare. Everything from the unbelievable softness of her skin to how she contracted around him as he nibbled on her ears, it was as if she’d been created bring pleasure. He
would never again have a female so perfect in every way. He wallowed in her perfection.
Yes, he was going to enjoy filling her womb. He’d worry about the consequences later.
32: Scry
“This shouldn’t hurt.” Tinker assured everyone as she used a handcrafted wax and iron-filing crayon to mark out a spell on the white stone.
Merry meeped nervously at the center of the spell.
Tinker was slightly mystified by the lack of trust she’d been encountering all day. She had heard rumors that the University of Pittsburgh had set up a magic research lab near the enclaves, complete with a large-scale spell casting area. It took her several hours to track down the small building, tucked just across the Rim, down hill and out of sight of the fairground. All the university people she talked to acted like she was going to blow it up or something. They’d been reluctant to admit that the building existed at first, and then to give her permission to use it.
Really—the only thing she’d personally blown up was parts of Ginger Wine’s enclave—and she didn’t think that should be held against her.
“It took three years and ten million dollars to build!” The university officials kept repeating, although when she finally reached the building, she had no idea why. While well built with cunning use of glass, stone, ironwood and poly-resin, it was basically just one massive slab of polished white marble resting on bedrock with a glass roof overhead to keep off the rain and snow.
Yet, even Oilcan was voicing concern. “Tink, I don’t really think this is a good idea.”
“I’ve done this spell before.” Tinker paused to dredge up memories of the last time she experimented with it. If she remembered correctly, the results had been disappointingly unimpressive. “On you even.”
“Yes, I know,” Oilcan flipped his datapad so she could read his notes. They read: The little mad scientist cast this on all of us today, she’s not pleased, is all I can say. Shakalakaboomboom. “I’ve let you talk me into lots of crazy things.”
“Did it hurt?”
“No. That’s not the point. You’ve never known what this spell does.”
“Not entirely.” She had to bow to the truth of that statement. “But I think I understand it now; it’s been a very informative summer. It didn’t hurt you and it won’t hurt her.” At least she was fairly sure it wouldn’t. “I’ve cast it on Blue Sky and it didn’t hurt him.”
“It made me dizzy for the rest of the day.” Blue Sky said unhelpfully. “John told me never to let you cast spells on me again.”
“It was the two hours in the Tilt-n-Whirl that made you dizzy.” Tinker said. “And I warned you about that.”
No one looked confident about her except for Pony and Stormsong, which was why she loved them best.
“Look, it’s a divination spell.” She paused in transcribing the spell onto the floor to show Oilcan her datapad.
Her grandfather had given her the non-indexed digital copy of the Dufae Codex after teaching her the key to the ancient book’s spell lock. Most likely it was his way of sharing the family secrets with her while slowing her down with the non-searchable copy. She spent most of her childhood building indexes and cross-linking the pages, testing various spells and adding her own notes to those of Dufae. She had this spell memorized, but for everyone’s peace of mind, including her own, she was triple-checking her work.
“The spell doesn’t act on the focus at all, but detects power connected to the focus. That’s why it didn’t seem to do anything when we were kids. Blue Sky has no connections, and our link to the Stone Clan Spell Stones is active only when we cast the resonance spell.”
“Why do you think they’re linked to an active power source?” He meant the kids in general. Merry was acting as guinea pig since the others had been so traumatized by the oni.
“I’m just gathering data. It’s what a scientist does when presented with the unknown. If it would make you feel better, I can do the spell on you first, just to prove it does what I think it does.”
“Yes, it would.”
Tinker finished drawing the spell as Oilcan and Merry changed places. There several divination spells in the Codex and it delighted her to no end to see that all the others had fingering diagrams beside them. Once she had Oilcan and the kids comfortable with her casting spells on the children, she planned to cut loose.
She quadruple-checked her transcription and spoke the command word. The outer shell of the spell powered up, creating a soft glowing dome over the entire spell, enclosing Oilcan inside the spell’s influence. The first inner ring powered up, a looping function that would keep the spell active until she canceled it. The symbol flickered one after another as the spell cycled around and around. The third ring created a second dome, fractions of an inch smaller than the first, marking out the true divination section of the spell. Showy but static at the moment.
“Okay, set up resonance,” Tinker told Oilcan.
Oilcan smoothly called the stones and a bright spike appeared in the spell’s half-dome, pointing roughly south by southwest.
“Is that the direction of the Stone Clan Spell Stones?” Tinker asked.
Pony nodded and Stormsong added, “It’s roughly in the same place as Huntsville, Alabama is on Earth.”
Tinker knew where Huntsville was—birthplace of Saturn rockets—so it gave her a good idea of the location. “Wow, why so far from the coast?”
“The stones must be built on very powerful springs of magic. There are very few points in the world where they can be placed.”
Oilcan dropped his resonance with the spell stones and waited for her to cancel the spell. “Okay, so you do know what the spell does.”
“I’m so hurt by your lack of faith.”
“I let you cast the spell on me.”
Tinker supposed that did forgive a host of things. She canceled the divination spell and shooed him out of the center.
Merry took courage from the lack to Oilcan to return to the center without any prodding.
Tinker made sure that none of the lines had blurred or shorted out. Once she was sure that spell hadn’t been altered by the previous casting, she spoke the command word.
The entire building lit up brilliant with streams of energy pouring through the focus.
Merry danced at the center of the spell, whimpering. “Sama?”
“It’s okay!” Oilcan called. “Cancel the spell.”
Tinker canceled the spell and Merry darted out of the center and into Oilcan’s arms.
“What was that?” Oilcan whispered urgently in English.
Tinker shook her head mutely. She didn’t know but it couldn’t have been good.
#
What the hell were Oilcan’s kids?
Tinker couldn’t even be sure all of the kids were like Merry. She wanted to test them all, but the spell’s spectacular reaction to Merry had rattled the kids badly. She couldn’t look into their fear-filled eyes—remember the excrement-filled pits she found them in—and force them to cooperate. They were still too fragile. She let Oilcan take them off to do something soothing: play music or pet baby animals or something.
It left Tinker with two meager data points: the children were all genetically similar and Merry, the control, was connected to something big.
Tinker had theories. The Skin Clan obviously had bred the kids to harness some kind of exotic power. Just like she and Oilcan, the ability had been passed down, generation after generation, locked away only by ignorance. Obviously the Skin Clan knew the key to unlock the kid’s abilities and desperately wanted control of that power.
Tinker flicked through the digital pages of the codex, tapping on the links to her notes relating to the various finger diagrams. She had applied every encryption method she could think of to the diagrams. The closest she had gotten was assigning five digit numbers to each set of drawings. Zero for laedin position where the finger curled tight. One for sekasha position where the finger curled from the first knuckle. Two for domana position wi
th the difficult only first knuckle crooked. Three for the full royal position with the finger fully extended, bowing to no one.
She had noticed the “numbers” corresponded to a periodic table-like hierarchy, since the numbers never repeated. She had theorized that the codex was missing spells since there were numbers skipped—like 32103—which set up resonance to the Spell Stones.
If she had ever grasped the meaning of the drawings, it would have been only a matter of time before she unlocked it all. She giggled at the thought of a six-year old human wielding the power of the Spell Stones. Oh the elves would have been horrified.
She sobered as she considered everything that could have happened. Sooner or later, the Stone Clan domana in Huntsville would have noticed that she was tapping their Spell Stones. The sekasha would have been alerted that there were unaccountable domana in Pittsburgh. The Wind Clan elves would have searched for the interlopers. If they had been found, she and Oilcan would have been exiled to Stone Clan holdings.
Tinker frowned down at her datapad. Had her grandfather withheld the one spell, rendering the rest inert? Had he kept it secret to protect her and Oilcan?
She blew out her breath. She should be focusing on the kids.
The children themselves might be ignorant of what they were—but it was possible that one of the Stone Clan adults would know. Unfortunately, Forest Moss was the only adult in Pittsburgh.
33: Hit by an Arrow
Tommy was so screwed. Strange he didn’t see it coming.
He should have known when they fell asleep locked together and he noticed that she fit perfectly to him. He should have realized it when she woke him up by sliding down onto him and he had to smile at her look of fierce determination. All day he had little warning signs as they scrambled up and down hills, across streams and marshes, dodging lone oni scouts here and killing them there. He missed the subtle evidence.
So he been completely clueless when she stopped on a ridge, cast a spell and then murmured, “We’re safe here, for now.” She made a slight noise of protest as he pulled her into his arms that ended with a laugh smothered by his lips.