Elfhome

The elves had completely remade Oilcan in their image. His closed eyes were now almond-shape. His ears were pointed. His fingernails were perfect half-moons on fingers innocent of hard-earned calluses. The newly flawless skin and lack of facial hair made Oilcan look more like a boy than a man, child-vulnerable to what they done to him. Anger for Oilcan’s sake flashed through Tommy, igniting a hotter fire of annoyance for letting himself care. They were basically strangers to each other — certainly not family — and Tommy didn’t make friends with anyone.

He reminded himself that it was better for him and his family that Oilcan was an elf with all the bells and whistles. An elf with a human soul.

Still he couldn’t stop thinking of the last time he had seen Oilcan. The human had been in his racing leathers, five o’clock shadow dusting his face, smelling of sweat, oil, gas and some lucky female. He had fought hard to save Tommy’s family, and dared to face Tommy’s rage to keep the half-oni from bringing harm to himself. The elves had taken that good and decent man and tried to make it as if he had never breathed life as a human.

Fighting down his anger, Tommy put a hand to Oilcan’s shoulder and tried to shake him awake. Oilcan’s eyes fluttered, opened a moment to gaze guilelessly up at him, and then slowly closed. A second shake failed to rouse him at all. No wonder the man hadn’t tried to escape; he was drugged and helpless.

Breathing out a curse, Tommy hauled Oilcan up and hiked him over his shoulder.

Getting out of the camp was going to be harder than getting in.

Boot steps warned Tommy that someone was coming. He jerked back away from the empty cot and focused on the elf beyond the tent flap. He locked down on the elf’s mind as the male slipped into the tent.

Oilcan asleep on the cot, drugged beyond waking.

Going by Bingo’s description of the Stone Clan domana, the newcomer was Iron Mace. The male stood a moment, intent not on the cot but on the movement of the camp beyond the silk walls. Had Iron Mace heard Tommy? The night was still and quiet as Tommy erased himself from the male’s awareness.

Apparently satisfied that there was nothing to hear, the male turned toward the cot. He pulled the pillow out from under Tommy’s illusion and then pressed it firmly down onto the illusion’s face.

Tommy clamped down on a curse. The bastard would have killed Oilcan while he was completely helpless. This was Kajo’s puppet. If Tommy were caught by the elves after witnessing this attack on Oilcan, Iron Mace would have to kill him. Oilcan’s “murder” needed to be convincing.

Tommy had suffocated Spot’s father while the oni warrior was drunk. He’d been sixteen and scared shitless, but he could still feel the male struggling under him like it was yesterday. He fed the domana the memory; the drunken body weakly flailing under the pillow, the muffled cries, and slow but inevitable stillness.

Iron Mace leaned his whole body weight down on the illusion of the much smaller male and held the pillow tight even after the body went limp. He panted hoarsely in the stillness. Finally Iron Mace slowly lifted the pillow. Tommy planted the image of a dead Oilcan, unseeing eyes open and mouth slack. The elf gave a quiet, shaky laugh and carefully replaced the pillow under the illusion’s head. His crime hidden, Iron Mace strolled out of the tent as if he had merely checked on the sleeping Oilcan.

Tommy rested a hand on Oilcan’s back and felt the reassuring rhythm of his breathing. He needed to get both of them out of here safely.

42: Awaking

“Wake up.” The command was growl low and menacing. “Damn it, wake up.”

Oilcan opened his eyes, feeling strangely hollow and light.

“About fucking time.” Tommy growled. A noise made the man glance off into the gray of oncoming dawn, giving Oilcan his tense profile. Tommy’s black-furred cat ears twitched as he listened to the distant noises.

Oilcan felt like a house open to the spring wind, blown clean and cold. He could remember Iron Mace drugging him and convincing Forge to change him, and then nothing. He put his hands to his ears and found elfin tips. “God damn him,” he growled as anger flowed into the emptiness and filled him with hot murderous rage. “Damn lying bastard. I–I-I…”

He wanted to kill Iron Mace. Never in his life had he wanted so desperately to destroy someone. Beat them with his hands so he felt the blows land hard and vicious. Hear their bones break. Reduce them to a smear of blood and then wash that away. He clenched his fist against the rage.

Tommy coldly watched him fight the anger as he took a pistol out of a kidney holsters and screwed a silencer into place. “That anger isn’t a bad thing. If I were you, I’d hold tight and ride it, because you need it to be hard enough to do what needs to be done.”