Elfhome

“Find anything?” Tinker called to Riki as he landed on the dock.

“No sign of the kids yet.” Riki shifted so he was still protected by her shield and shot at a small oni that was struggling to reposition a tripod-mounted machine gun. “Most of the outbuildings were lightly guarded dog kennels and pig sties.”

“This whole place looks like pig sty.” Tinker picked her way slowly through the garbage. The pain made it hard to keep her footing while maintaining her shield. She was losing track of the fight around her. “What’s the deal with this mess?”

“This is a sleeping nest.” Riki watched her nervously. “I’ve never seen one this disgusting before.”

“If the kids are tied up somewhere in here, they’ll be difficult to spot,” Tinker said.

“Gods forbid.” Riki fired off more shots. “The only reason they’d be in here is the greater blood had no more use of them.”

The other teams came spilling into the sleeping nest. They spread out, weaving through the litter, looking for oni. Tinker started toward the only visible door on the warehouse’s back wall. A dozen steps forward and she nearly tripped over a small body, half-hidden in an avalanche of trash.

She recoiled with fear, seeing only a snarling face. Riki shot it twice before either of them realized it was already dead.

“What is it?” Tinker asked. The creature was smaller than any oni she seen before. It had a pig-like snout, sharp tusks, and was covered with coarse hair. It was wearing only a loincloth and a bandolier filled with fat shells for the grenade launcher lying beside it.

“Oni.” Riki reloaded his rifle. “Lesser blood. Very lesser.”

She kicked it for scaring her. “How did this even get to Elfhome? Did the oni put it in a dog crate to get it halfway across Earth and through EIA checkpoints?”

“It was born here,” Riki stripped off the bandolier and picked up the grenade launcher. “This is a whelping pen. The Greater Bloods brought females that could pass as human to Elfhome via Chinese visas. The father of that thing was probably one of the wild boars locked up outside.”

She’d been so focused on getting through the trash while keeping up her shields that she hadn’t thought about why the oni would have animals kenneled in the middle of the city. She shuddered. “What logical reason would you mate a female to a wild boar?”

Riki passed the piglet’s weapon and ammo to one of his warriors. “These hybrids reach maturity faster than humans. Think of Chiyo; her pregnancy will run less than two months, not the nine months of a human. Within a decade, her puppies would be ready to breed.”

Tinker flinched at Riki using the word “puppies” for Chiyo’s children but she’d seen the mating; the warg father had been pure animal. Chiyo already had fox ears and a tail — how human could her offspring possibly be?

“This is why the oni are hiding instead of fighting,” Riki said. “They’re immortal like the elves; they can afford to play the waiting game. The longer they wait, the stronger they become. Within a few decades, they’ll easily outnumber the elves in this area. In thirty or forty years, they could have several million of their kind in Pittsburgh.”

“Millions?” Tinker scoffed. “Even with a generation a decade, do they really have the numbers to hit that mark?”

“Do you think that the humans will be left out of their plans forever?” Riki asked. “There are sixty thousands humans in Pittsburgh but with the exception of these EIA soldiers, they’re sitting on the sidelines, watching. The Greater Bloods know that if the humans took up arms, it could tip the scales in the elves’ favor, so they’re leaving the humans alone. When the time is right — maybe as long as a decade from now — they’ll kill all the men and turn all the women into breeders.”

Tinker stared at him in horror. “You can’t be serious.”

“This is a war to the bitter end,” Riki said. “The only ones that don’t know this are the humans. If the elves lose, then the humans will end up like the tengu.” He lifted his foot and flexed his bird-like toes. “Remember, we were once human.”

She knew the oni well enough to recognize the truth in what he was saying, but she didn’t want to believe it. “So — we’re going to find oni children in here?”

“That is one of the oni children.” Riki pointed at the dead tusked oni. “It’s about nine years old. Don’t worry — all the other oni ‘children’ will do their damnedest to kill us too.”

#

She had just reached the door when a shout went up from the other corner of the sleeping nest. One of the marines waved and flashed a series hand signals that Tinker didn’t recognize.

“Domi, no.” Pony blocked her from moving closer to the discovery. “You do not need to see this.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“The oni killed one of the children,” he said. “A female.”

Tinker wavered, not wanting to see the dead female, but feeling like she should force herself to look. She looked down at her arm. The only thing she’d done the entire fight was keep it locked into one position. It hurt so bad she felt like crying. “I feel so useless.”