Elfhome

“I’ve got to stop this. I have to find a way to stop this.” Tinker entangled herself from the sheets and stumbled out of bed. “I think what Providence really meant was that the Skin Clan are going to do something big to take over Elfhome again. Once they do, they could use it to attack Earth from two sides. Obviously the oni are another army of monsters they’re going to use. Oilcan’s kids work into this somehow—”

Pony winced at the mention of Oilcan.

“What? Is he okay?” Tinker cried, suddenly afraid.

“He is…unhurt.”

“What then?”

“Prince True Flame has ruled that nagarou is to be considered Stone Clan since he can tap their spell stones.”

“He can?” It amazed her that they’d gone this long without knowing that. She realized that if Oilcan didn’t know the connection spell, the one that opened him up to the stored power of the spell stones, the rest of the spells would be inert.

That was all? But judging by Pony’s look, it was not as harmless as it sounded.

“This is bad how?”

“He is no longer automatically under Windwolf’s protection. It is unclear what will happen once the Stone Clan send new domana to help fight the oni.”

“They wouldn’t try to hurt him, would they?”

Pony looked unhappy. “There are many ways to bring harm without drawing blood.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “How soon before they arrive?”

“The Wyverns do not like our situation here. We are spread dangerously thin. They have demanded that the sekasha of the Stone Clan act; there will be more domana here shortly, whether they want to come or not.”

“But any one of them could be the ones working with the Skin Clan.”

“We have no choice; we must accept them as trustworthy until they prove otherwise.”

#

Another raid on Stormsong’s wardrobe later and she headed down the street to find out what was so special about Oilcan’s kids. They seemed completely normal to her, but she was starting to think maybe she was clueless about constituted as “average.” It wasn’t as if she and Oilcan had ever lived a “normal” life before saving Windwolf’s life. Since then, both of their lives had gone off track into completely strange. All manner of inexplicable things had happened to them both. She had become an elf, accidentally stranded Pittsburgh on Elfhome, and fallen into space to save a spaceship that been trapped in time for her entire life. Oilcan had befriended a dragon, derailed the Skin Clan’s collection of the children by adopting Merry, and now was considered head of Stone Clan in Westernlands.

All of that was made even odder because, by rights, neither of them should even be in Pittsburgh. Her father died childless long before the first Startup; her entire existence was an anomaly. Her grandfather once said that he’d brought Oilcan to Elfhome only because he couldn’t move Tinker to Earth. If Tinker hadn’t existed, then Oilcan wouldn’t have been in Pittsburgh. Given those two points, everything that followed was even more improbable. Someone of religious bent — say Riki — might even say everything was miraculous.

Tinker paused on wide stone front steps of Sacred Heart.

Why couldn’t her grandfather take her to Earth?

At the time, she thought it was because she would have fought like a hellion to stay on Elfhome. She realized now that the temper tantrums of a six-year old wouldn’t have swayed her grandfather from doing what was best for his grandchildren. They were his sun and his moon — he would have killed to protect them.

Had Leo warned her grandfather that Jin was tengu and there were oni on Earth? Then again, how did Leo know about the oni? The war had broken out after her ancestor left Elfhome.

“Hey.” Oilcan came down the steps to hug her, being overly careful and awkward because of her broken arm. “Been worried about you.”

“To quote Blue Sky, I have the Great Wall of Kick Butt.” Tinker was glad to see that Thorne Scratch had survived the oni attack on Ginger Wine’s. The female stood within shield range of Oilcan, her “on duty” light on. The story of Tinker’s life lately was how a few days of insanity altered how she saw someone without them changing. She had to remind herself that while she now saw Thorne Scratch as a solid ally, there was no way of knowing how the warrior felt about Tinker. She kept to English. “We’ve got lots and lots of trouble.”

Oilcan’s sudden grin warned her that he was going to say something stupid. “Right here in River City. Trouble with a capital ‘T’ that stands for Tinker.”

She smacked him with her good hand. “I’m serious. This is majorly bad.”

Oilcan listened to her explain the tengu visit. “Coz, your life is strange.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking that: it makes me a bad judge on what is normal. What do you think, how normal are your kids?”