"Whatever it takes," Sparrow said.
Perhaps it was just as well that Tinker didn't have breath to talk; she had a feeling that she would be saying things that she'd regret later. She comforted herself by thinking choice insults.
Tomtom clicked his tongue and Riki looked up. "Take this." The oni lord held Tinker out to Riki. "See that it doesn't slip away again."
So Tinker found herself handed off again like a child's doll. Annoyingly, she couldn't help but feel somewhat safer with Riki, perhaps just because he was familiar. He, at least, balanced her upright and stooped to undo the ties around her ankles. "Stay still. Stay silent," he whispered to her without meeting her eyes. Yeah, right.
Tomtom's cat ears flickered from Riki to a distant wail. "Ah, my warriors have found the vixen."
"You'll have the kitsune killed." Sparrow said it as a disinterested statement, not a question.
"One normally has to be diplomatic with the kitsune," Tomtom said. "This presents possibilities . . ."
A moment later frantic cries became audible, growing louder. Chiyo was dragged into the vast room, struggling in the hold of two oni warriors. Her fox tail stuck out of a tear in her kimono, and her doglike ears were laid back in distress. At a signal from Lord Tomtom, the warriors released Chiyo and she flung herself at Tomtom's feet. As the kitsune begged in frantic Oni, the corners of the oni lord's mouth curled up into a grin.
"Her Oni is worse than mine," Sparrow said. "What is she saying?"
"She says she'll do anything to avoid the knives." Lord Tomtom motioned to one of the waiting oni. "This will interest you."
Sparrow gave an exasperated sigh. "My time is limited."
Tomtom gazed at Sparrow hard. "Stay and be instructed."
He put out his hand and one of the warriors gave him a leather lead and slipknot collar. Tomtom dangled out the lead, clucking as one would to a dog. Chiyo cringed but sat up, canting back her head to lay bare her throat.
"Many of the lesser bloods have the spells to manipulate them threaded through their genetic pattern," Tomtom explained to Sparrow as he slipped the collar over Chiyo's head. He pulled the slipknot tight, winding the lead around his fist. "I could reduce her back to fox if I wanted."
Chiyo whimpered in fear.
"What use would a fox be to me, little kitsune?" Tomtom purred, wiping away Chiyo's tears. "I've decided to breed you. No, no, no." He murmured as Chiyo glanced at the surrounding warriors. "Your mate will have to be fetched. Now hold still."
He growled out a word, and strange runes gleamed to life on Chiyo's skin. In a low dull drone, Tomtom chanted out a spell, and her very skin began to glow. After a minute, he fell silent and the light vanished, and Chiyo panted quietly.
"I've put her into season." He loosened the lead and handed it to one of his warriors, pointing back across the warehouse and saying something in Oni.
Chiyo cried out as if struck. "Warg?"
Sparrow made a face of distaste. "Oh, beat her and be done with it."
"The lesser bloods are socketed so they can breed with anything," Tomtom said. "I want to introduce the warg abilities into the kitsune line."
Sparrow scoffed at this. "You don't change the genome directly?"
"Breeding for pups is a simpler method," Tomtom said.
"This is a waste of my time," Sparrow said. "I must be gone before I'm missed."
"Speak then," Tomtom said absently, watching the kitsune be stripped of her kimono, bent over a bale of bedding, and tied into position.
Tinker turned away as warriors took advantage of Chiyo's helplessness; the males laughed as their manipulations made the kitsune in heat moan wantonly. Remember what she's done to me. I hate her. I should be glad she's being punished.
Sparrow took no notice of the events with the kitsune. "I told you at the start of this that Wolf Who Rules needs to be eliminated."
Riki caught Tinker before she could launch herself at Sparrow, muffling her stream of curses at the elf.
Tomtom glanced at Tinker struggling in Riki's arms and a smile quirked at his mouth. "I have done all I will do in that regard."
"You failed miserably," Sparrow said.
Damn right, bitch, Tinker thought fiercely, still muted by Riki's hand.
"Exactly," Tomtom said. "I will not endanger my position by fruitlessly striking at him. The dogs were expendable, but I will not risk my warriors."
"He suspects that his domi's disappearance is not an untimely accident," Sparrow said. "He plans to return to the citywide search."
"And you will take the river edge as before," Tomtom waved aside her concern. "Avoid this valley as planned. If you can not, call your contact first and we'll trigger the greater cloaking spells."
"Wolf Who Rules loves this little piece of trash!" Sparrow cried, making Tinker's heart do a strange little flip in her chest. "He's not being swayed from the truth. He knows we took her, he just doesn't know how or where we're hiding her."
Tomtom turned to look at Sparrow full on, wordlessly.
Sparrow visibly needed to steel herself against his cold look. "You are failing to see how dangerous he is."
"And you are overestimating him," Tomtom said flatly.
"Your people have never dealt with a domana lord on his own land," Sparrow said.
"A knife in the spine," Tomtom said. "An arrow through the eye, or a sword through the heart, and he will die like everything else in this universe."
"No!" Tinker cried into Riki's palm, and the tengu held her tighter still.
Tomtom turned away dismissively as the massive warg was brought in, muzzled, on a stout stick lead. The beast strained against the handler, heading for Chiyo.
"So arrange the knife!" Sparrow refused to be ignored. "Or the arrow or the sword! Kill him!"
Tinker wriggled in Riki's hold. Shut up, bitch! Shut up!
Tomtom's tone grew flatter, colder. "I will not stand here, repeating myself, or do you wish to go after the kitsune?"
Sparrow looked then, as did Tinker. The warg loomed over the kitsune, erect, proportionally wrong for the female, seeking an entrance in her slight body. Tinker looked away, desperately concentrating on anything but Chiyo and her sharpening whimpers. Sparrow watched, not even flinching as the kitsune gave a scream of agony. Tinker hunched against the sound of the big animal laboring, and Chiyo's now endless, shrill barks of terror and pain. She wanted to cover her ears, but Riki wasn't loosening his hold.
Sparrow tore her gaze away from the godless union. "So be it then. Let Wolf Who Rules be the domana you cut your teeth on. If you're to take this land, you'll need to face them eventually."
"Ah, good, he's tied with her." Tomtom ignored Sparrow in favor of the breeding. "If she brings a litter to term in two months, I'll breed her again next season." Tomtom glanced down at Tinker. "This one has the domana genome? Perhaps I'll get my own litter on her. She's tiny, but I suppose that gives her a certain childlike allure."
Tinker shrank away from his clinical gaze.
"You can breed her later," Sparrow said. "The queen's seer says she's the key to our plans regarding the gate."
"So it was reported to me." Tomtom knowing obviously threw Sparrow; Chiyo must have told him earlier, after reading Tinker's mind.
"The seer said," Sparrow continued, "that the only way to bind her was with ties of her own making."
"Which means?" Tomtom asked.
"You'll only be able to hold her with promises freely given," Sparrow explained. "How you'll manage that, I do not know, nor do I care. Torture her if you must, but bind her. Obviously she'll slip away if you do not."
Sparrow nodded then and swept away, leaving Tinker with her enemies without so much as a glance. Tinker had thought she hated Riki and Chiyo; she understood now what a shadow of hate that had been.
With a look from Lord Tomawaritomo, Riki released his hold on Tinker.
"You were human, the weakest of us." Tomtom studied her with his cat eyes. "If the elves had left the gate betwee
n our worlds open, we would have long since enslaved the humans. Weaklings, all."
"You don't need muscles when you have brains," Tinker snapped.
"The question is, how elfin are you now?" Lord Tomawaritomo said. "If I have you punished as you should be, will you survive it? The human didn't."
He meant Russell, whittled down by inches. Her arms tucked tight to her chest, and he laughed. She tried not to think of those bright sharp knives, the blood, and the white of bone.
"The risk would be great that she wouldn't survive," Riki murmured.
Lord Tomawaritomo glanced at Riki, eyes narrowing in speculation. "If you helped it escape, death would be preferable. You are being spared right now only because I myself called you away."
It took Tinker a moment to realize that Tomtom was referring to her as "it" as if she was a thing, not an intelligent being. Only a warning look from Riki kept her silent.
"Chiyo doesn't have the brain to keep her deluded," Riki explained.
"See that this is secure," Tomawaritomo growled softly, pointing at Tinker. "Then get me a whipping boy to use against it."
Riki bowed low, caught Tinker, and hurried her from the room, while Tomtom turned back to supervise the end of Chiyo's breeding.
* * *
They locked Tinker in a broom closet. It was only wide enough for her to sit down, knees tucked under her chin. No air ducts or even electrical outlets. After Riki untied her, four of the oni warriors, the shortest clearing seven feet, put her firmly into it, shut the door, and locked it, leaving her in darkness.
Hours crawled by.
A whipping boy. Who would they bring to torture in her place? Oilcan? No, no, please not him! Lain? That would be unbearable too. Windwolf? Unlikely—for all the reasons why Tomtom was refusing to kill him—Windwolf was too visible, too well guarded. Nathan? It would be the ultimate irony if he died for her.
Oilcan made the most sense, though, and the realization made her start crying. Damn it, she hated to cry. She rocked in place as tears burned in her eyes. Oh, please, please, anyone but Oilcan.
She heard footsteps approach the door and an exchange in Oni. One of the guards unlocked the door in a jangle of keys, and they opened it up, all poised to grab her if she tried to put up a fight. Ha! She was tempted to snarl at them, and make them flinch, but something about coming only to mid-stomach on them kept her from taunting them.
They took her to Tomtom's suite. Whereas most of the place was run-down offices and warehouses, the suite had been remodeled to opulence. The ceiling was a design of blocks within blocks, the walls a deep rich red, and the polished wood floor strewn with the pelts of large white animals.
Tomtom, Riki, and the torturer waited there with a host of armed, tense, and bloody warriors. Their focus had been on a body lying still on the floor in front of Tomtom. They shifted their feral interest to her as her guard checked her just inside the door. The body lay curled into a fetal position so that she could see only the curve of the spine.
Tinker trembled. Who was it? What had Tomtom's people done to the person to make him or her lie so still? Please, not Oilcan.
The body shifted, revealing the spill of long elfin hair, and she felt a wave of relief. Not Oilcan. Oh, thank God. And then she recognized the elf: Pony.
On the slight wave of Tomtom's hand, the guard let go of her, and she went to Pony without thinking. They had stripped him down to his loose black pants and beat him soundly. He flinched violently when she touched him.
"Easy. It's me, Pony."
He slit open his blackened eyes, and looked at her in first confusion and then in dismay. He groaned and tried to get up, to get her behind him, to protect her. He only managed to sit up, and she caught him before he collapsed.
Lord Tomawaritomo came and stood over them, gazing down at her with his cat eyes. "Good. You care for this whipping boy."
She realized then that she had made a mistake. She shouldn't have put her arms around Pony. She should have ignored his presence, refusing to acknowledge him. Lord Tomawaritomo knew now that he could affect her by hurting Pony.
"You didn't have to beat him," she snapped.
"One does not lightly take a warrior prisoner," Tomtom said. "They are made sturdily. One can cut them down to almost nothing before their life force gives out."
Tomtom lifted his hand and the squat torturer scurried forward wearing its bloodstained leather apron, boning knife glittering in his hand.
"You don't have to hurt him," Tinker cried, tightening her hold on Pony. "I'll make a gate."
"I am not afraid." Pony pulled out of her arms and managed to get to his feet. "Go ahead. Torture me. Kill me. She will not do what you ask of her."
Tomtom stepped back. "We will take only his sword arm first."
"No!" Tinker shouted, stepping between the oni and Pony, spreading wide her arms to shield him. "Don't hurt him! I'll do it! Just don't hurt him."
"Tinker domi!" Pony caught hold of her, pulled her back. "Do not do what they ask of you."
Tinker wriggled in his hold. "I can't watch them kill you little by little."
"I do not care what they do to me," Pony said.
"Pony, I can't." She swung around to focus on him. "I know myself too well. I can't sit and watch you scream your life away. I'll break. Maybe I can last until you've been tortured to death. But then they'll go find someone else to hold against me, and I won't be able to say no again, especially not after watching them cut you to pieces. I will break. I would rather break now, without having to take your screams to my grave, than after you're dead."
"I see," Pony said quietly. "Forgive me my selfishness."
"You do not understand." Tomtom's voice was a dangerous low rumble. "They will take his bones just so you know how serious I am. For any disobedience, the punishment will be worse."
Tinker could not imagine worse, but she was sure that Tomtom could. "No. No. Don't hurt him. I'll do what you want."
"Yes. You will." Tomtom gave an order. One of the warriors bent down and caught her by the waist, lifting her off the ground, while the other two caught hold of Pony.
"No! No!" Tinker cried. "If he's hurt, I will do nothing!"
"If torturing him does not work, we'll get another. One that works better."
Oilcan! She cried out as if struck, and then thought quickly. Did she have any leverage point beyond her ability? "Leave him alone, and I'll finish in a month!"
Tomtom whipped around and had her by the throat before she could react. "A month? That is twenty-eight days?"
He was going by the moon cycle, instead of Earth's calendar, but she wasn't going to argue schematics with him.
"Yes, twenty-eight days," she whispered. "Hurt him, and I'll do nothing! No matter who you get to replace him."
"You're lying," Tomtom said, making her stomach turn to lead and sink. "You cannot do it in a month."
"Yes, I can!" she cried. "The process is easier than I thought. I'll make a gate in a month, but only if you torture no one—I'd rather die than reward those who harmed ones I love."
Tomtom cocked his head, considering her. "Twenty-one days."
"What? Three weeks?"
"Twenty-one days or I'll have the bones removed."
She glanced at Pony, and wet her mouth. "Fine, I'll do it in twenty-one. But I'll need work crews: carpenters, electricians, and Riki."
"So be it." Tomtom gave an order, and the guards started to separate them again.
"Wait!" Tinker cried. "No! We had a deal!"
"He is spell-marked," Tomtom said. "The skin will have to be flayed."
"No!" Tinker said. "He's not to be hurt in any way."
"I'd be a fool to let him keep the spells," Tomtom said. "You could use them to escape."
"I promise I won't!" She beat on the massive arms holding her, trying to get to Pony. "On my honor, and the honor of my house, I will stay here without escaping and build your gate. Harm him, and I will do nothing."
Tomtom shook his head
. "What is it with you domana and your sentimentalism for your underlings? It must be genetic. It makes you weak."
"Fine. I'm weak." She kicked her feet, dangling as she was in the guard's hold, emphasizing that she was small and scrawny. "I'll give my word and stay without trying to escape and build your gate within twenty-one days only if he's completely unharmed."
Tomtom came to grip her chin and gaze deep into her eyes. "Say it again."
So she repeated it. Carefully.
"Sparrow said that we'll only be able to hold her with promises freely given," Riki said. "If she can hold a warrior, then her word must be binding: she can't lie when giving her word."
"Very well." Tomtom released Tinker's chin and growled a command. She found herself on her feet, Pony supporting her. "Take them back to her room. She'll start working tomorrow at first light."
* * *
Riki helped her support Pony on the long walk to her bedroom, through dusty warehouses and barren offices. The sekasha concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, only flinches of pain on his face showing how badly he was hurt. Tinker wanted to scream accusations at Riki, but Chiyo's punishment was still stark in her mind. Even the kitsune thought that the breeding had been considered the kindest of the possible punishments.
"I'm sorry," Riki said as he delivered them to the bedroom that proved—without Chiyo's presence—to be windowless.
"Why?"
He took her to mean "why Pony," although she wasn't sure herself which of the many whys she meant. Why did he continue serving such a monster? Why had he kept her silent—thus, and in hindsight, safe from Tomtom's anger? Why hadn't he chosen one of the many humans she loved? "I find that I actually think of myself as human more than I thought," Riki said. "It was easier to pick an elf; I was taught to hate them."
"I'm an elf."
"You'll always be a human to me."
Only humans said things like that, so maybe he was telling the truth. Still, she couldn't find any room to forgive him.
"Go away," she said, and shut the door on his face.
She wanted to press Pony for details about what Windwolf was doing, how Oilcan was coping with her supposed death, if work had continued on her research center . . . but Pony looked like hell. She cleaned the blood from Pony's face, and nearly cried over the heel print bruised into the back of his right hand, his fingers swollen and broken.