Elfhome

Tommy had watched Oilcan grow up on the racetrack. Even at sixteen, he’d quiet, serious, and responsible. Tinker was the brains and the media darling but Oilcan been the one that kept everything going smoothly on the team. Listening to the songs that Oilcan had written, it was obvious that the man understood the weird collision of humans and elf culture that made Pittsburgh. The city was going to need people like him and Tinker to keep things from exploding, as the elves got more and more insistent that the humans conformed. They didn’t get that most of the humans in Pittsburgh were in the city because they didn’t want to conform. It was people that liked living on the edge that stayed, everyone that wanted safe and familiar had fled to Earth first chance they got.

The elves had been treating Oilcan as one of them, even while he was still fully human. Chances were that by now, Oilcan was as much an elf as Tinker. But if she was any indication, no matter how pointy the ears got, a human still thought like a human.

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He’d guessed right. There was a fresh path cut through the dark forest where Route 88 hit the Rim. The trees were hacked down in one clean cut, as if felled by a giant axe and their massive stumps blasted away. Had to give one thing to the elves, at least the people in charge were scary powerful. This close to the Rim, all the houses stood empty. He glided his hoverbike through the missing sliding door of a nearby ranch house into a cave dark living room. Plaster from the ceiling crunch under foot as he spun the bike, parking it ready for a quick getaway later.

The night echoed with life. Someplace far off, children were playing baseball, the crack of ball against bat triggering excited joyous shouting. The bass from a distant stereo thumped to an inaudible melody. A dog barked for attention. It was the sound of peaceful life. The kind of life he wanted for his family, where dark was nothing more than time to relax and play.

He checked his clip and headed into the forest.

Less than two miles from the Rim, the path hacked through the towering ironwoods ended in a wide clearing. The perimeter guards were few and far apart, with eyes only watching outward. Once Tommy blinded them to his presence and slipped past them, he had no trouble moving unnoticed through the camp. It was a matter of walking with purpose, as if he had full right to be there, while keeping to the shadows.

Bingo had said that the Stone Clan domana had come to Pittsburgh with only their sekasha and laedin-caste guards. As a result, the camp wasn’t as refine as normal for elves. There were only a few elfshines drifting among a dozen tents done in dark fairy silk, which made it easy to move unnoticed.

Tommy found Oilcan asleep in a small, unguarded tent. Tommy breathed out in relief. He gotten to the man before Kajo managed to have him killed. Tommy only needed to get Oilcan safely to Tinker.

Unless Kajo set Tommy in motion without him realizing he was being played.

Tommy paused at the tent’s flap with the sudden doubt. What if Kajo planned all along for Tommy to find Oilcan and whisk him out from under the elf’s watch to someplace that Kajo could easily kill him? Kajo had him running circles with the tengu scam. Only Oilcan and Blue Sky had kept him from that trap. What if this was another snare?

No the tengu scam had been Tommy acting like normal. Watching out for himself and his family. Flying solo. Caring only about what was his. The only thing that saved him was he’d swallowed his pride and asked for help. Kajo apparently hadn’t counted on Oilcan and Blue Sky working together to save the half-oni.

So it was probably safe to assume that Kajo wouldn’t know how much meeting Jin changed Tommy. Hell, even Tommy hadn’t realized it until he was deep in the wilderness, staring down at the massive oni army and realizing how fragile the peace of Pittsburgh was. How he would have to join the fight to protect it. How the only way he could protect his family was doing stupid ass things like sneaking into elf camps.

No, Kajo wasn’t pulling his strings.

Tommy stepped into the tent and let the flap close behind him. He needed to get Oilcan to Tinker — wherever she was — before Kajo could land his killing blow. He moved quietly to the cot and reach out to shake Oilcan awake.

They had changed Oilcan into an elf.

The sight kicked Tommy to a full stop. He expected it but still…