John smacked him on the back of the head. “Behave.”
“I don’t like you groveling to them.”
“It’s not groveling, it’s fitting in. At the race track, you fit in by acting tough and saying you’ve got the best team. Different place—different set of rules.”
“At the races, we’re all equal. Elves are all about keeping people under your thumb.”
“You sound like half the rednecks of Pittsburgh.”
“I am one, that’s why. My father never cared enough to see how I was doing. I don’t see why we have to do this.”
“Your father didn’t know about you—”
“Because he was a murdering psychopath of a sekasha and our mother was a nutcase.”
John ignored that little rant. “At the races, you know that if anyone on the pit crew didn’t do what I told them, they’d be off the team. Every place has rules—and none of them are better or wrong—they just are.”
There was a rattle of metal on wood—the bar on the gate was being drawn. They were being let in.
“Now be polite and don’t screw this up—or you might be staying here when I go home.”
Blue gave him a terrified look, but was polite as they were frisked for weapons and, once again, checked to see if they were disguised oni.
* * *
Tinker was just a year older than Blue—thus John had known her all her life—and yet, when they were escorted into an orchard courtyard, he barely recognized her. Oilcan had told him about the physical transformation. John had guessed that power would probably also change her—but he hadn’t been ready for this.
He had known a coltish girl dressed in dirty hand-me-downs. She enjoyed her solitary junkyard existence because it allowed her to play mad inventor. Famous for her virginity, she unknowingly blew away all would-be suitors with aggressive intelligence, fierce independence, and stunning naivety.
This stranger wore a dress of fairy-silk green that shimmered against her dusky skin. With magic, her eyes and ears—along with her underlying DNA—had been changed from human to elfin. She lay on a blanket in the dappled shade, her head resting on the lap of a young male sekasha. Four more sekasha watched John intently, while pretending polite disinterest. It was difficult to judge the ages of elves, but John thought that all five seemed young, as if Wolf Who Rules tried to match up his wife with guards who were just “teenagers” themselves. Despite the tranquil setting, the three males and two females bristled with weapons. Whereas the Fire Clan sekasha had been redheads, the Wind Clan sekasha were dark-haired and blue-eyed like Blue Sky. Their spell tattoos and scaled chest armor were in the deep blue which identified their clan.
“Domi, wake up,” her pillow murmured. “They are here.”
She woke slowly, yawning and rubbing at her eyes. Her actions were innocent, but the skin-tight dress made them sensual. It wasn’t until she blinked at John and said his name that he realized that her arm was braced and inked with healing spells. He hadn’t heard that she’d been hurt, but considering her last fight with the oni had nearly leveled the city, he shouldn’t have been surprised.
She really shouldn’t arch like that as she stretched awake. He glanced away, feeling like a pervert—she was young as Blue! “Sorry, the healing spells…” She yawned. “They make me really tired. What’s wrong, John?”
John had hoped for a private talk with Tinker. Apparently that was impossible. He worked on ignoring the sekasha. Blue leaned against him, glaring at the guards.
“The Fire Clan sekasha were just at the garage. They’ve ordered me to talk to Wolf Who Rules. I was hoping you could—be in our corner. We could use some help.”
“I don’t understand.” Tinker ran her hand through her short brown hair, grabbed a handful and tugged at it. The familiar gesture comforted John that something remained of the girl he knew. Under the clean skin and beautiful dress, he could see the core of the compassionate person he knew—now weighted down with responsibilities. She had gone from being accountable only for herself to having all of Pittsburgh on her shoulders and, judging by the weary sigh, fully aware of it. “Why did Wyverns send you here? To talk about what?”
Blue pressed tighter against John’s side and shook his head.
John sighed. Having promised the Fire Clan sekasha, he had no choice; he had to broach the subject. “Blue’s father was Lightning Strikes Wind.”
Tinker looked confused but the sekasha attending her went from polite disinterest to staring at Blue Sky with startled amazement.
“Stormsong?” Tinker turned to the blue-haired female who had her hand pressed to her mouth. “Who was Lightning Strikes?”
Stormsong blinked away tears and composed herself. “He was killed by a saurus at the Faire Grounds five years ago. He was barely out of his doubles.”
“Oh!” Tinker made a little sound of hurt. “I saw him die. I didn’t know he was that young. All elves seemed so old to me then—but I guess that would only make him seventeen or eighteen if he were a human.”
Elves became adults at a hundred, when they needed three numbers to write their age. John had always assumed it included a much extended “holding pattern” much like the gray zone for humans between the age of sixteen and eighteen, when they were old enough to drive and to drink but not legally adults. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been wrong all along. Elves didn’t mature quickly and yet remain legally a child. They matured slowly through the ages that corresponded with the human range of twelve to eighteen.
John stood there in shock. He had expected that Blue would continue growing up, slower than humans, but reaching maturity within the next ten years or so. But he was wrong—Blue would not be growing up for a long, long time. “Blue Sky’s half human,” he finally managed to say. “He might grow up faster.”
Tinker’s guards shook their heads.
“If his father had not been sekasha, that might have been so,” Stormsong said. “But we breed true; ours is always the dominant gene. He will be his father’s child much more than his mother’s. He won’t be able to deny his nature. I know from experience, it will be better if he accepts it instead of rebels against it.”
John struggled with all the implications flooding over him. He remembered how as a teenager, he’d grown like a weed. Blue was seventeen but still looked like a ten-year-old. “What do you mean?”
The sekasha exchanged looks, and then the male at Tinker’s side said, “Forgiveness, domi, but as Lightning Strike’s child, he belongs to Wolf Who Rules’ household until he’s an adult. It is the clan’s responsibility that he be raised correctly.”
At least I was right about something—this was exactly the reaction I was afraid of.
“Pony!” Tinker cried. “We can’t just take Blue Sky from his brother!”
“Sooner or later, domi, it must be done,” Pony said. “He will be a child long after his brother dies of old age.”
“I am seventeen!” Blue cried. “I’m almost full grown! I’m top hoverbike driver in Pittsburgh, and I put in forty hours a week helping John run the shop.”
“I have to say, I know how he feels,” Tinker said. “I’m not happy that the queen has said that I have to wait until I’m a hundred before being considered an adult.”
“His case is much different from yours, domi,” Stormsong said. “There are hormone changes that affect the development of the mind, and those come with aging. A child, no matter how mature, still views the world with a child’s mind, and reacts to it in the same way. You matured to an adult before being made an elf, domi, but have been given the protection of a child until you have learned all you need to know about our society. Your lack is of knowledge alone. Much as he wants to be viewed as adult—as much as he must hurt seeing others his age treated as almost adults—he will not be one for a long time.”
“John, say something!” Blue cried. “They can’t do this.”
It all matched so well with what John had been ignoring. Blue had dropped out of high school,
complaining that everyone suddenly seemed like alien creatures. The problem was that Blue had continued to have elementary school interests, while the others raced to embrace all things adult.
“The problems will truly start when his sekasha nature joins the natural aggression of puberty,” Stormsong said.
“We like to fight,” Pony clarified. “And we’re very good at it.”
Blue loved the fierce competition of hoverbike racing. While in high school, Blue came home with bloody noses—and reports that his taller opponents were the worse for wear.
“And he needs better nutrition,” Pony said. “He’s too thin, his hair is brittle and his fingernails are ridged; all signs he’s not eating right. If his diet doesn’t change, his adult bones won’t be as strong as they should be and his eyesight might be impaired. A sekasha child needs twice the meat and milk as a normal elfin child.”
“I’m fine!” Blue shouted. “I’m not too small! I eat fine! I’m not violent, and I’m sick of everyone acting like I’m not here! You can talk all you want, but I’m not living here!”
And he bolted out of the orchard though a gate that John hadn’t noticed.
John shook himself out of his daze. “Blue! Blue!” Oh great, so much for showing his wonderful parenting skills! “Tinker, please, he’s only half elf. He’s still half human, and that part makes us brothers. Our blood has to count for something. I don’t want to give him up.”
“Domi,” Pony countered. “It is not possible to raise a sekasha child alone.”
Tinker, however, seemed to be listening intently to the whine of a hoverbike’s lift engine spinning up. “That’s coming from the motor court, isn’t it?”
“That little turd is taking my bike!” Stormsong cried in English, and took off running in the direction Blue had gone.
John’s heart dropped down through his stomach. Oh, no! He took off after Stormsong, keenly aware that she had a pistol as well as her sword. Beyond the courtyard was a motor court with a dozen garage bays open showing off a fleet of gray Rolls Royce Phantoms. Just outside the last bay, Blue sat astride a top-of-the-line custom delta hoverbike.
“Blue! No!” John shouted.
The boy maxed the lift and popped the bike over the high demesne wall in one easy leap. On the other side, he dropped all power into the spell chain and roared off.
Oh, God, how could Blue be so stupid? John spun to face Stormsong, holding up his hands to warn off her anger. “I’m sorry. I’ll get it back, and fix anything he breaks on it.” He edged around her, heading back to the orchard. “I promise you, I’ll make things right.”
He echoed the apology to Tinker as he passed her, heading for the front gate and his pickup.
Tinker trailed after him. “He’ll just go home, won’t he?”
“I don’t know,” John admitted. “But I’ll get the bike back. Please don’t call the police.”
“Fuck the bike,” Tinker snapped in English and then dropped back to low Elvish. “It isn’t safe for him to be alone in the city right now. There are still pockets of oni troops. The humans are upset at the elves. And if the Wyverns think the Wind Clan isn’t handling Blue right, they will take him.”
John stumbled to a halt. “But you said that Blue was part of Wolf Who Rules’ household.”
“The Wyverns are head of the sekasha caste,” Pony explained calmly. “They have ultimate responsibility for Blue Sky.”
* * *
John was at his pickup before he realized that Stormsong was following him.
“I’m coming with you.” She opened the passenger door.
John stared at the tall, leggy female. “Why?”
“Because I can get you around all the roadblocks that the royal troops have set up, and protect Blue Sky from anyone that might try to hurt him.”
She had a good point, but it still seemed wrong to get into the truck with one of them. John still wasn’t totally convinced Blue was in no danger from the sekasha beyond being taken from him.
“I’m not going to hurt your brother.” She read the disbelief on his face. “I swear to you, by the blood and the sword that makes me a sekasha, I will never harm Lightning Strike’s son.”
An elf would never lie. To them, there was nothing more important than their personal honor.
“He’s really a very good kid.” John slammed shut his door and started the engine. “He’s just upset and angry. He’s never done anything like this before.”
“I know that.”
“How can you know that?”
“It’s why we’re considered holy. Virtue is not a choice for us; it’s encoded in our genes, on the same level as the color of our eyes. Under stress, Blue Sky might falter, but he’ll never stray far from righteousness.”
“Morality is not a genetic trait.”
“What the fuck do you know?” Stormsong snapped back in English. “Elves didn’t start out immortal. We were made that way while we were slaves to the Skin Clan. For thousands of years, they perfected bioengineering, using what you know as elves as their guinea pigs. Each caste is a different gene pool they set up. They wanted the perfect guard, one that they could trust absolutely, so they made the sekasha virtuous without measure.”
“I’ve never heard of the Skin Clan.”
“Because we sekasha carved their fucking evil hearts out—each and every one of them.”
So much for trusting their guards absolutely. “And I’m supposed to hand my brother over to you to raise?”
“That’s what we want.” Stormsong shrugged. “But you’ve asked domi to intercede—so it is possible that is not what will happen.”
John studied the female, trying to tell how serious she was. “If she decides in my favor, you’ll obey her?”
“Yes.” Stormsong saw the surprise on his face, and added, “She’s our domi,” as if it explained everything.
“I don’t get it,” John said. “You’re these holy warriors of God, each of you hundreds of years old, and you roll over and listen to…”
“Do not go there.” There was a razor edge in her voice. “I will forgive much, but not a slur on my domi.”
John swallowed down anything that could be taken as negative toward Tinker. He couldn’t believe that they would so blindly obey her judgment. “After the Skin Clan, why would you listen to anyone? You’re the ones who are ‘virtuous without measure.’ ”
Stormsong smiled. “Because we like to fight.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“No. It isn’t. We prefer to solve all our problems with violence—but might does not make right.”
“So you let someone less vicious run the show?”
“More or less.”
“I still don’t see why you would listen to Tinker,” John said as they rolled up to the first checkpoint. “Compared to the rest of you, she’s just a kid.”
“I thought you knew her—I guess I was wrong.”
* * *
With Stormsong in the truck, John was waved through without the prolonged questioning, being tested with spells, and being searched for weapons. It also turned out that Tinker had called ahead. Blue hadn’t been shot at when he ran the roadblocks. The news chilled John.
Let him be home, safe and sound.
There was no sign of him at the gas station. John raced through the building, checking all the rooms. Everything was as they left it.
The bell on the pumps chimed, summoning John back to the garage.
“He’s not here.” Stormsong said it as a statement, not a question. She bounced on the air hose again. “He doesn’t want to bring trouble down on you, so he won’t come back.”
“Shit, shit, shit.” John tried to think of where Blue would run to as Stormsong walked through the garage, giving it the same careful study that the Wyvern had. “Go ahead and say it.”
“What?”
“‘This is no way one such as he should live,’ ” John quoted the Wyvern.
“Actually, this is cool.” She touched the
fireman’s pole lightly. “But there’s nothing of us, the people who will still be here when you’re gone. The oldest living elf is close to twenty thousand years old—that’s a long time to be alone.”
“I’ve taught him what I could.” John headed for the door, trying to ignore the guilt taking root in the center of his chest.
“I told you—we see things in black and white. What we don’t embrace, we reject. We don’t do the middle ground. You’re teaching him to hate himself.”
“I am not!” John cried.
“Yes, you are.”
Was he? Everything they claimed to be sekasha had fit Blue Sky so well. Could this be true too? Guilt grew through John like a dark weed. He went out to his pickup and got in but still had no idea where to head.
Stormsong got in beside him. “He’s that way.” She pointed west.
“How do you know?”
“I’m mixed caste—much like Blue Sky. My mother is the queen’s Oracle. I spent my childhood trying to deny being a sekasha. I went through much of what Blue Sky is going through now. Even hating myself.”
John considered west. A large chunk of Pittsburgh still lay in that direction, from their gas station in McKees Rocks to out past the airport. Even Tinker’s scrap yard lay in that direction. “Can you be more specific?”
“He’s feeling helpless right now. He’s heading someplace where he can feel powerful.”
The racetrack.
* * *
John could hear the whine of a hoverbike being pushed through the curves and loops of the racecourse even as he parked in the big empty lot. As a team captain, he had a passkey into the track.
“It will be important to get him off the bike.” Stormsong followed close on John’s heels. “He might hurt himself.”
“He won’t wreck the bike by mistake,” John assured her. “He’s one of the best drivers in Pittsburgh. See.”
Stormsong gasped as she watched Blue Sky tear through the complex twists and turns. “Oh, shit. I didn’t connect the name. You’re Team Big Sky!”
“Yeah, we are.”
She laughed. “Oh, Lightning Strikes would have been proud. Team Big Sky has always been the clan’s favorite team.”