That was what Tristan was doing? Or did he not know what happened after he found the tengu? He had asked Celine if Yves had captured Shoji; he’d left before the fighting started. Louise wanted to believe that Ming kept the slaughter from the half-elf. That Tristan was innocent by way of ignorance.
The curtain rustled back to admit a tall man in blue scrubs, ending all conversation. According to the ID badge clipped to his shirt pocket, he was Dr. Stefan Harmeling. He had a black Afro cropped short into stubs, dark brown skin, and tattoos tracing up his arms. “Jesús santisimo,” he whispered. He cautiously canted to the side so he could eye Crow Boy’s back. “Wings. Now I’ve seen everything.”
The children jumped slightly when the curtain rustled open again. It was only a nurse joining the doctor in the area.
“It’s okay. No one is going to harm you.” Doctor Harmeling smiled reassuringly and cautiously closed the distance between him and Crow Boy. “Let’s take a look at you and see how badly you’re hurt.”
Crow Boy scowled at him and then focused back on the twins. “Do you have someplace safe to go? You should leave now. Protect yourself.”
Jillian gave Peter Pan’s fearless laugh. “We, at least, have clothes on! You’re going to be naked when they’re done with you.”
And he’d need them to dismiss his wings, but when the hospital staff wasn’t paying close attention.
“They will follow,” Crow Boy said. “They are relentless.”
“First they’re going to have to put out the fire and track down the vehicles. We sent all the vehicles away from the mansion.”
“Well . . . actually . . . the truck is still there,” Nikola interrupted in Elvish. “It’s quite durable, so we’ve been using it as a battering ram. The rest we drove into the river; so it’s going to take them quite a long time to get them back.”
The doctor swung around to stare down at Nikola. “Jesús santisimo! Elfhome dogs can talk?”
The nurse carefully eyed Nikola. “It’s not a real dog. It’s one of those new very realistic nanny robots.”
“Perfect!” the doctor cried. “If it’s from Earth, it probably can translate for us.”
Louise winced. Nikola had never had to lie before. She wasn’t sure he knew how. He shrank back with a whimper as everyone in the room focused on him.
The doctor crouched down to Nikola’s level. “Hey, boy, do you speak English?”
Nikola whimpered again and looked to the twins and then looked at the doctor and then back to the twins.
“Dog, what’s your name?” the doctor said.
“Konnichiwa.” Nikola slowly stumbled over the Japanese, using his deep male samurai voice. “Boku wa Akita da.”
Strictly speaking, he was an Akita.
The doctor sighed and scrubbed his face. “Okay, we need a translator here as soon as possible and a child advocate. The fibula is fractured and this bruise has a tread pattern on it. Someone stomped on his leg to break it. If I remember my history correctly, the treaty forbids children from being removed from Elfhome, so I’m thinking that someone might be slave-trading them.”
He wasn’t that far from wrong.
* * *
Luckily the hospital didn’t have a translation device equipped to handle Elvish. They cycled a dozen human languages past the twins, three of which they were fluent in, but they pretended not to understand. The child advocate arrived and signed release forms so that Crow Boy could be X-rayed and MRI scanned. The test results triggered a phone call to the city zoo to summon a vet.
“This is so wild!” the vet murmured as the adults all eyed the test results.
Dr. Harmeling shook his head. “I’m not sure what the girls are. Their vitals are fine, so we don’t really have a reason to test them. But he’s definitely not human.”
“Yes, I agree,” the vet said. “His anatomy is very birdlike. His bones are hollow and thin-walled but dense. These masses resemble a crop and gizzard, and these look like the air sacs that play an important part in respiration in birds. These bony hooks on the ribs support the anchorage of the muscles that move the wings. He has three toes in front and one in back, not five facing forward. These are claws on his toes, not nails. It’s just mind-blowing.
“That said,” the vet added, “he’s displaying a lot more understanding of his situation and surroundings than any animal I’ve worked with, and that includes gorillas. I believe he’s equal to human in intelligence. I don’t think he’s an elf, but what do I know about elves?”
“What does anyone know? We’ll just put him down as a black-winged elf.” Dr. Harmeling tapped the MRI of Crow Boy’s leg. “Some bastard deliberately broke this boy’s leg. All these knife cuts on the arm? This is clearly torture.”
“Setting bird bones is similar to a mammal but occasionally it’s harder to keep the thinner bones lined up. We’ll have to take X-rays after the cast is on to make sure nothing shifted after we set it.”
“Think we can give him anything for pain?” Dr. Harmeling asked. “We’ll need to get these leg muscles to relax to line the bones up.”
“There are some things that we use in birds that are also used with humans. What I tend to use with birds is inhalant anesthesia. It’s pretty safe. As you know, it is gotten out of the system by breathing, so you can wake the birds up pretty quickly.”
* * *
A police officer arrived armed with a machine translator. Apparently the New York City Police Department had to deal daily with people speaking one of the nearly seven thousand different languages on Earth. He was unruffled at the prospect of interviewing victims in Elvish.
The wings, though, freaked him out.
“He’s definitely half-bird,” Dr. Harmeling stated after he reassured them that the wings were attached via bones and muscles and not just some clever costume. “He’s not from Earth. They seem to be communicating in Elvish. At least, my staff has picked up a handful of words that they recognize from some videos.”
Crow Boy had his face set to an unemotional stare, but the nervous flutter of his wings showed his fear.
“And no one came in with them?” the officer asked.
“They were dropped off by a sports car. We checked the video, but all our cameras went haywire about ten minutes before they showed up. They’re still down.”
The twins had nuked the hospital’s security system while en route so the police couldn’t backtrack them to Yves.
“I’m police officer Jayden Cohen.” The man paused, waiting for the translating machine, which decided “laedin-caste Fire clan royal marine” was as close as it could get to “police officer.” His given name came out as “God will judge priest.” Obviously the translator wasn’t the most sophisticated piece of hardware. “What is your name?”
Crow Boy stared. His face stayed neutral but his quickly tracking eyes betrayed that he was trying to think of a safe answer and failing.
Louise hadn’t considered what they would tell the staff if a translator showed up.
Luckily, Jillian had. “He is Crow Warrior Boy of Wind.” Crow Boy’s eyes widened and he gave Jillian a panicked look, which she ignored. “I’m Sweet Lemon Scent on Wind and this is my twin sister, Flowering Lime Tree Swaying in Wind.”
The police frowned at the machine as it butchered their names to “Child Boy Fighter Crow, Candy Stink Lemon, and Tree Waving Limbs Madly Lime,” and after a moment of thought added “Facilitating Outcrossing.”
The police officer then eyed Jillian and Louise. He reached out and tugged one of the antenna out of Jillian’s hair. “What exactly are you?”
Jillian raised her arm—covered with a blood-soaked sleeve—to wipe at her eyes. Life lesson number five kicked in: adults will believe the stupidest things when you’re covered in blood. “Those that kidnapped us put those into our hair and then laughed at us and told us that if we took them off, they’d cut off one of our fingers. Please put it back.”
Louise acted out comforting Jillian. “We don’t understan
d. Why did they do that? What is that? What does it mean?”
Suspicion bled off of the officer’s face as the machine translated their lies.
“I don’t know, sweetheart, but you don’t have to be scared.” Officer Cohen produced an evidence bag and dropped the antenna into it. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt you.” He collected the other three antennae. “Are you elves? From Elfhome?”
Jillian used the time it took the machine to translate out the questions to launch into a series of distraction questions, just to muddle things. “This box that talks? Magic speaker voice thrower? Ham loaf? Pickle questions?”
Crow Boy looked confused as the machine faithfully attempted to put the garbled Elvish into some reasonable English translation.
“This box that talks? Fling voice orator magic? Bread of smoked pork? Questions preserved by anaerobic fermentation in brine?”
Jillian obviously was hoping that if she garbled the replies enough, the policeman would assume any holes in their story were from bad translation and not because they were fabricating almost everything.
The policeman frowned and replayed her answer. A very good sign. “Yes, this is a translator. It translates what I’m saying in English to Elvish.” And then obviously not trusting the machine now, he pointed to his mouth and said “English” and then pointed at the machine. “Elvish.” And then muttered quietly, “I hope.”
The twins waited for the translation, which was perfect.
“Oh! How clever!” Jillian stated.
“Yes, it is wonderful!” Louise cried.
“Please help us!” Jillian cried. “Madly galloping into the night, we transfix. Please help Crow Warrior. His leg is broken! They put us in cages and fed us zombie donkeys. Pickle questions? They stomped on his leg and broke it and they had knives and they were going to cut him up!” Jillian mimed the elves attacking with the butcher knives. “Dirty dog! Train biscuit train! If they find us, they’ll kill everyone and put us back into the cage!”
“You’re safe,” the police officer stated after the machine struggled to translate the mix of good and purposely garbled Elvish.
“They have a hidden army here on Earth!” Louise warned. “The EIA has been infiltrated. The ambassador to China is one of them. Ambassador Feng!”
“Female dog breath yelping,” Jillian added quickly.
“Purple!” Louise stated firmly, nodding.
Crow Boy stared at them as if they’d both grown two heads.
“The ambassador of China?” The policeman latched onto the first clear lead they had given him.
“Purple!” the twins cried in unison.
“He came to the mansion asking for help . . .” Louise started.
Jillian continued, “He needed help because royal marines from his country were coming to arrest him. They found out he’s oni.”
Louise added. “Crown Prince Kiss Butt of the oni told him to run and hide and not come back!”
Jillian held up her right hand and smashed thumb and pointer finger together. “Dokadokadokadoka.”
“Purple,” Louise breathed. “The hidden prince tortured him with magic before telling him to run away. It was scary.”
Jillian nodded. “They put us into a cage, but we managed to escape! They caught us again and broke Crow Warrior’s leg. They said they were going to cut off his feet. But then there was big explosion. Boom! Everything was burning, and we got away.”
They had to wait a long time for the machine to translate and then Officer Cohen to puzzle out the basic gist of their night.
“How did you get here?” Cohen asked.
Good question. Louise frowned at the translator as if it had said something strange. Intermixing babble with actual real information was harder than she’d thought.
“The box that moves on wheels,” Jillian made a motor noise while indicating spinning tires by twirling both pointer fingers in circles.
“Automobile!” Louise provided the term that the elves used for cars.
Jillian clapped with excitement. “Purple! Purple! Automobile! We came in an automobile!”
The police officer looked to Crow Boy.
“Purple,” Crow Boy confirmed faintly. “Automobile.”
The police officer frowned at the machine with frustration. He obviously wanted to ask all sorts of questions, but they had him on the ropes.
“They’re going to kidnap Tinker domi . . .” Louise started and faltered.
“She invented hoverbikes.” Jillian launched into an elaborate mime that seemed to involve weaving cloth. “They are full of eels!”
“Her father made the gate that the oni created in space.” Louise pointed up at the sky.
“The oni thinks that the apple never falls far from the raccoon.” Jillian stood up, picked up one of the hospital gowns stacked nearby, and tossed it over Louise’s head.
Luckily Louise had realized what Jillian intended to do. She did not startle at being blindfolded. As the world vanished, she was filled with a sense of calm. She knew exactly what to say. “Black wings murdered time and now wait in timeless darkness. The dream crow stirs. She will cry out and the blood of her beloved will answer. The promised time is at hand. Let the flock be gathered and stand strong against those who enslaved them. Providence will provide. His child returns, bringing forth all that is needed for salvation. Impatience will—”
There was a loud outcry as Crow Boy suddenly lunged off the table and landed at her feet. Catching hold of her hands, he gripped them painfully tight. “Jin is alive?”
“No, no, no!” the doctor shouted. “Orderly!”
“Is Jin alive?” Crow Boy cried.
Louise squeezed close her eyes, trying to hold on to the sense of calm knowing. “His prison is about to be broken and he will be set free to fly again. The door is closing, but evil has taken root on Elfhome. All can be lost—”
The blindfold was torn away as Crow Boy was muscled back into his bed, gently but firmly, by two large male orderlies.
“He tore out his IV,” someone cried, and Louise realized that her hands were covered with blood. Louise stared at her bloody fingers. How did this keep happening? Up to today, blood was something that she half-expected after a great deal of planning and debate and risk assessment. It never came as a surprise. Other than Jillian’s, she had never even seen someone else’s blood, and here it was, all over her, again and again.
Jillian started to whimper, a prelude to real crying. Fake crying would have been loud and instant. With her sniffles, the day proved too much for Louise, and she felt hot tears filling her eyes.
“Oookay.” The police officer was shaking his head. “I have not a clue what the hell that was all about.”
“We need to put the boy under,” the doctor murmured as he pressed his hand over the machine’s microphone. “None of our translators are loaded with Elvish. Can you help us explain to the children what’s about to happen?”
* * *
It was stressful to watch them apply the anesthesia and see Crow Boy become totally helpless. Louise hugged Nikola tight, trying to find the inner calm that she’d experienced just moments before. It had been as if she’d stepped out of herself, shedding all fears and worries along the way.
After they wheeled Crow Boy away, she realized that Joy was rummaging through medical supplies, tearing open plastic wrappings to taste the contents. The girls were out, scurrying about in their mice robot bodies.
“What are you doing?”
“Hungry!” Joy cried. “Candy! You promised!”
“Bored,” Chuck Norris said.
“Scared,” the Jawbreakers squeaked.
Nikola pressed up against Louise, nodding silently in agreement with the Jawbreakers.
“We need to feed her now.” Jillian went to the door and peeked out. “They said it would be hours for them to set the leg and him to fully wake up from the anesthesia.”
In other words, if they waited, Joy would only get more uncontrollable.
“I thought I saw some vending machines near the waiting room.” Louise scooped up Joy with one hand and plucked up the mice one at a time with her other, depositing them on her shoulder. “We’re getting something!” she cried as Joy squirmed. “Just be patient.”
They waited until the nurses at the station across the hall were distracted and then slipped out. The other rooms were all dark; the patients asleep. The twins walked quickly through the deserted hallways to the waiting room. There was an entire wall of machines. The first offered hot coffee. The second was water and chilled juice and milk. The third was fruit and veggies.
“Oh God,” Jillian whispered. “Of course a hospital would only have healthy snacks. What about grapes? You like grapes.”
“Feh,” Joy muttered from Louise’s arms. Then she spotted what was in the next machine. “Oooooh!” She leaned far out of Louise’s hold to press her paws against the glass. “Candy!”
Jillian sighed and pointed out the ones they knew the baby dragon liked the most. “Gummy worms? Snickers? Kit Kat? M&Ms?”
Joy gazed up them with pure delight on her face and nodded.
“Which ones?” Jillian asked.
“Candy!”
“I think she wants one of each,” Louise said. “She’s been really good so far. We owe her.”
“All this can’t be good for her.” Nevertheless, Jillian used her phone to buy one of each type of candy. “We’re lousy mothers, you know. Our mom would never give in to us. She’d give us that look and we knew we’d better behave and we would.”
Louise felt a sudden floodwater of sorrow rise up. “I know.”
“What are we going to do about the babies?” Jillian whispered. “Joy is good at taking care of herself, but what are we going to do with real babies?”
Louise steeled herself against wanting to cry. “I don’t know. We don’t have any way for the babies to be born yet, so let’s not worry about it now.”
“When they’re born, we’ll work hard and be the best mothers ever.”
“How can you be our mothers when you’re our sisters?” the babies asked.
“Oh!” Jillian used one of their parents’ distraction tricks. “We’re going to have to get new phones.”