Elfhome

“No,” Tinker snapped. “Every time I’ve turned around this summer, someone has been drugging me with saijin. No way I’m not going to take it by choice.” She made the mistake of glancing at Riki, who been one of the people that had forcibly dosed her. Once to kidnap her, and another to keep her from realizing how easily she could escape. Judging by his sorrowful look, he was regretting the experience as much as she did.

The glance also reminded Pony of everything Riki had done to Tinker. He shifted next to the tengu.

“I’m fine.” Tinker growled, mostly for Pony’s sake. “Besides, saijin gives me nightmares that have the nasty habit of coming true.”

Soothing Breeze gave an apologetic look to Cloudwalker. “The pain will get worse.”

Oh joy.

“Just do it.” Tinker tried to brace herself against the promised pain.

She didn’t succeed.

It was like getting hit by lightning. Everything flashed white and she was only vaguely aware that she had screamed.

When her vision cleared, Cloudwalker had tighten his hold on Soothing Breeze and Pony had Riki pinned to the far wall with a palm to Riki’s chest. At least none of her Hand had drawn their swords yet.

“Leave them alone!” Tinker growled between clenched teeth. Her arm had been a low pulse of pain since she broke it; now it was hard, agonizing throb keeping in time with her heart. A whimper slipped out and a strongly felt, “Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.” If she made the healers continued without drugs, she’d probably just get Riki killed. “Get me the freaking flower.”

Pony snapped an order and one of the other healers fetched the glass jar holding a single large golden bloom of the saijin flower.

“Go home.” Tinker told Riki and then, because it seemed abruptly rude after all his help. “Thank you. Oh, and I need to talk to you about greater bloods when I wake up.”

Riki nodded but his eyes were on Pony, who still had him pinned.

“Pony, let him go.”

As Riki slipped out the door, Tinker held out her hand for the flower. If she had to take the drug, she was going to administer it herself. The sweet powerful scent only held bad memories for her. She steeled herself, praying that she wouldn’t have nightmares, and breathed deep. Sweet whiteness claimed her.

19: For the Win

Tommy and his cousins stormed the garage of Team Providence first. The building was completely empty of everything, even dust.

“We just not let them race!” Syn said as Bingo sniffed around the room, trying to find a scent.

Bingo shook his head. “They waited until the Post Gazette listed the teams. We provided the list after the teams all paid the entrance fee. The elves would see that as a contractual promise…”

“Fuck the elves.” Tommy snarled. “Okay, so to hit all of us at once, there had to be at least twenty of them. Were any of them part of Team Providence?”

His cousins shook their heads.

“Thirty tengu. We only need one. One little bird to sing.”

#

The tengu had at one time had been humans that lost their way onto Onihida through natural gateways. Gathered into one mountain tribe, they were conquered by an oni greater blood, who merged the survivors with the crows feeding on the dead. Typical oni stupidity — use what was at hand and not worry about the consequences. Thus the tengu were clever with languages, attracted to bright and shiny things and tended to flock together against their enemies. Like Tommy, the tengu had thrown in with the elves during the last battle, and won their limited freedom.

The Four and Twenty was the tengu bar in town. On a Friday night, it was crowded with tengu. Wading into it would have been an invitation for a full out war, with a good possibility that the tengu they wanted was not even in the crowd.

Tommy didn’t have his father’s talent. Lord Tomtom’s ability to pass an army invisibly through a crowd was the reason his father had been chosen to oversee the invasion of Elfhome. Tommy couldn’t completely mask a moving object from multiple watchers. With stage props, dark lighting, and concentration, though, he could pass as someone else in a crowded space.

He tore up one of his T-shirts to match the backless style favored by the tengu. With matte black paint, they painted a close approximation to the spell that was tattooed onto the back of every tengu. His black hair needed no work, but he wore a hat pulled low, to cover the fact his nose wasn’t a large hooked beak.

He startled Bingo at the door on his way out.

“Tommy?” Bingo sniffed a few times to verify his scent. “Why Riki?”

“He has some influence, so I’m going to use it. Besides, I can nail him cold.” They had worked with Riki during the summer, serving as a go-between as Riki spied for the oni. In the confusion following Lord Tomtom’s death, Riki managed to free his baby cousin and break free of the oni. Ironically it had given Tommy the courage to rebel.

“How are you going to know he’s not in the Four and Twenty already?”

“You’re going to sniff around the outside first. Still remember his scent?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

#