Elfhome

“Here’s far enough.” Tommy pinned the tengu to the wall. “Where’s the bike?”

Kenji looked at the hand pinning him, seemingly still unaware he was in danger. “I don’t know where they moved it to.”

Was he telling the truth? “Who would know where it is?”

“Look, you shouldn’t even get involved in all this. It could get messy. We didn’t want to get you or Jin pulled in.”

Behind Tommy, he heard Bingo shift with a scrape of boot on pavement. Kenji glanced toward the noise and went stiff with alarm.

“It’s an oni brat!” Kenji cried and tried to push Tommy aside.

“Yes.” Tommy lifted his head and dropped his illusion. “It is. Now, tell me, where’s the bike, or this will get messy.”

#

Unfortunately, they had to get very messy, but without learning anything useful. If Kenji knew where the bike was stored, he took the information to his death. After what they’d done to him, however, Tommy doubted that the tengu had ever known. At first light, they dumped his body into the river.

Tommy knew that his father would have raided the tengu village, taken hostages, and executed them for the surrender of the bike. He couldn’t. Even if he could bear to be that much like his father, the elves were watching him too closely. He’d be putting every half-oni in Pittsburgh at risk.

He didn’t know what to do. The race would start in a few hours and he didn’t know where the bike was being stored. The tengu had outwitted him so far at every step, so staking everything on a chance to intercept it and destroy it would be stupid. He needed to act, not react. He had no proof that the tengu had defrauded him, while, for all he knew, this was a clever trap, forcing him to betray himself by cheating.

No, he needed a plan, one that the elves couldn’t object to. Kenji had admitted that the tengu’s bike could outstrip the Delta in speed. Speed wasn’t everything.

#

Tommy’s luck was good for once. John and Blue Sky were at the Team Big Sky’s pit at the race track, keeping to their habit of showing up early. The only sign of change was a basket of food from the enclave instead of their normal brunch of hot dogs and sauerkraut from the concession stands. John eyed him with faint suspicion as Tommy crossed the racetrack.

“I need help,” Tommy said.

“You?” John said.

“Yes. I put up all the money to rebuild my family’s restaurant to back my bets.” Tommy went on to explain how Team Providence had disrupted the phones in order to defraud him. “They have a new bike. It’s faster than yours. They plan on blowing you out of the water and bankrupting me.”

“It’s not my problem,” John said.

“They’ll take everything I own, including this racetrack. These bigoted frauds will be running the races; screwing people over whenever they feel like it. You think you don’t trust me — but if you really didn’t, you wouldn’t be letting your little brother race here. I run a clean track. For the last five years, I’ve kept this kind of bullshit out. You might be scared to let me anywhere near Blue Sky, but you’ve always felt this place was safe for him.”

John studied him, the line of his jaw tight.

Blue came to lean against his brother. “There’s nothing wrong with Tommy; he’s just trying to protect his family.”

“He does it by hurting people,” John said.

Blue shrugged. “He likes to fight. And so do I. John, what’s the point of me racing today if I’m not trying to win?”

John looked down at his little brother and then sighed. “Give me a minute to think.” He paced the pit for a minute. “Most of the racing bikes are stripped down so that they’re lighter. The Delta has a beefed up power plant and Blue is one of the lightest riders, so we’ve never stripped down the Delta.”

“We should tell Oilcan about this,” Blue Sky said.

“What?” Tommy was surprised that Blue would be willing to share an advantage.

“It is only fair,” Blue said. “Oilcan could have stripped down his Delta to get an edge on me, but he’s been keeping the playing field even.”

Ah, yes, the honorable thing. “We need to keep it quiet, or the tengu will strip their model too.”

“Oilcan can be trusted,” Blue said.

It went against Tommy’s grain to trust anyone. Part of him, though, envied Blue’s easy faith in someone. Having another team on a more equal footing, though, would be to Tommy’s advantage.

“Fine, tell Oilcan,” Tommy said. “Let him know that we have to keep it secret.”

Blue nodded and dashed off.

John took out his drill and started to dismantle his Delta.

Blue Sky came back a few minutes later with a spell stencil. “Oilcan gave this to me. Tinker designed it. It goes on the handle bar. It gives a bike a more aero-dy-namic profile…whatever that means. He was going to use it this race to try and gain speed on me, since I’m lighter than him.”

#

A few minutes before race time, the tengu team arrived, bike intact. Tommy wasn’t sure how they slipped it past the various traps his cousins had laid outside of the racetrack, but it didn’t matter. It was here and he was out of time. Everything rode now on Team Big Sky and Team Tinker.