Elfhome

“Because of their mothers.” Lemonseed blushed and looked down at the ground. “The Souless One had developed a spell in which a child would be produced within a female’s womb without her having sex. It has never been clear if the resulting child was the mother’s flesh and blood, or if she was merely a vessel for another’s child. He tested it first using wargs; he was trying to make a creature strictly for war.” Lemonseed waved her hands as she floundered. “The offspring looked like elves. Many did not survive their births; they were eaten by their beast mothers.”

“Gods.” Tinker breathed.

“When he saw he could make elves with the god’s essence, he used filintau-caste to bear the children.”

The filintau were “the clean folk.” The caste had been created to be a pure breeding stock, free of defects. Apparently the mother’s “purity” was enough to affect how the other elves saw the offspring.

Still, how did you even take something like Impatience, render it down and produce an elf born to a beast? Tinker couldn’t imagine the level of knowledge on gene manipulation that the Skin Clan had to possess. Even the horrific twisting of the oni didn’t compare.

Her new cellphone started to play Sky Diving — Blue Sky’s ringtone.

“What is it, Blue?”

“Everyone is gone, and someone’s here.” Blue’s voice was thin with fear. “I think it’s oni.”

“What? Where are you?”

“Sacred Heart. Someone just broke down the door.”

“Get to the safe room!”

“We can’t! They’re downstairs and we’re upstairs.”

She was running toward the door, aware that warriors were sweeping up behind her. Her mind was racing through the school’s layout. The bedroom doors had frosted glass inset into wooden frames. Only the restrooms had solid door. “Go to one of the restrooms and barricade yourself in.”

“The toilets or the bathing room?”

It doesn’t matter, she almost wailed and then realized it did. “The bathing room!”

Judging by the shouts and screams and sudden gunfire, Blue Sky had the other kids with him and a gun. Where was Oilcan? Where were Forge and his Hands? There should be a horde of sekasha between the kids and the oni!

There was an awful possibility that the oni didn’t need or want the children alive. Maybe body parts were sufficient or maybe they would rather that the kids were dead than have Tinker able to discover what was different about them.

“Tinker! They’re breaking down the door!”

“The chute! Come down the chute!”

She detoured to the construction chute still slanting down the side of the building to where the dumpster had been parked. What were the numbers of “soft?” She dropped her phone and cast the spell, praying she remembered the fingering chart correctly.

A moment later Baby Duck came shrieking down the slide and landed in soft, yielding nothingness.

“No, no!” Tinker used her foot to block the screaming little female’s attempt to climb her. “I’ve got to catch the others. Someone get her!”

One of the laedin’s caught hold of Baby Duck and was, in turn, frantically scaled until the little female was latched tight around the warrior’s neck.

Rustle was next, quiet and white. He stumbled to his feet and turned to catch hold of Merry as she slid down to safety. They clung to each other.

Tinker wanted Oilcan’s kids safe and sound, but it was Blue Sky she desperately wanted on the ground beside her. The little idiot would probably wait until last — his father’s genes wouldn’t let him go any earlier. Cattail appeared, then Barley but no baby sekasha. “Blue!” There was an explosion above. “Blue!”

And then he was there, safe. She canceled the spell so she could hug him tight. “Idiot!”

She was aware of royal troops arriving, summoned too late by the gunfire and explosion. The kids would have been taken if not for Blue Sky. “Where is Oilcan?”

“I don’t know. We were watching Rocky Horror Picture Show and the dog suddenly started growling.”

The elfhound puppy, Repeat, wasn’t accounted for either. She could guess its fate — elfhounds were prized because of their courage and selfless loyalty. They were just as bad as sekasha in regards of dying for the ones they loved. She tightened her hold on Blue Sky, reassuring herself that he was fine.

It still left the mystery of what the oni wanted with the kids and where all the adults had gone. Had the oni intended to take the kids or just kill them? Did the oni manufacture some emergency that pulled the adults away? Or had they just taken advantage of Forge stealing Oilcan back to Easternlands?

Tinker glanced toward the faire grounds and her heart leapt up her throat. Three gossamers drifted above the field, waiting to be tied off at the anchors. All the gondolas were Stone Clan black but edged with red and green. None of them were Forge’s gossamer but she’d been asleep for hours before she cornered Lemonseed. “Did Forge’s ship come and go while I was sleeping?”