Wolf Who Rules

When they returned, they found Wai Sze stripped bare to her waist. Burning with embarrassment, Tinker peeled the protective sheet from the circuit paper and pressed the spell to Wai Sze's small chest as Jin watched her intently. It required a lot of fiddling to make sure it was smoothed down over the hills and valleys of Wai Sze's breasts. On the female's hip was a tattoo of a lion overlaying the Leo star constellation, Leo's heart-the star Regulus - a blaze of blue-white in its chest. Tinker used it to change the subject. "She's a Leo?"

"Hmm? Oh, that, no, it's for Gracie's husband, Leo. He got a tattoo for her in the same place, a little bird."

Gracie was obviously the Americanization of Wai Szi's name. Leo was the name of Tinker's father, killed by the tengu before she was born. Surely it was an odd coincidence. "He's a tengu?"

"No, Leo was human. He was my college roommate at M.I.T - and my best friend for many years."

"Was?"

Jin glanced at her sharply. Whatever he saw on her face made his hard look softened. "Leo and Gracie were like Romeo and Juliet. They fell madly in love at first sight. Their families didn't want them to be together. They got secretly married. And it all ended in senseless tragedy. Leo was killed in an accident, and for the last five years, Gracie has been suicidal with grief. Crows mate for life."

"Leo's family didn't want him to marry her?" Tinker asked. "They knew she was tengu?"

"No. We were Chinese - that was enough."

Yes, that would have been enough. Much as she loved her grandfather, she knew the truth of his bigotry. She had been wondering why she dreamed of Gracie. Now she could only remember how the little tengu female had endlessly wept in her dreams.

Tinker had taped the leads to power distributor ring of the spell and hooked the other ends to the battery. "You check to make sure all the metal is clear of the spell. It would distort the effect of the spell, which could be deadly. The activation word is pronounced this way."

Jin listened closely, and then nodded as the outer ring powered up, casting a glowing sphere over the rest of the spell. The healing spell itself kicked in, the timing cycle ring clicking quickly clockwise as the magic flowed through the spell in a steady rhythm. "How long before we can tell if it's going to work?"

Tinker shrugged. "On an elf, I could tell immediately."

As they watched, color flushed back into Gracie's face and her breathing grew deeper. The machines monitoring her health verified that her heart was stabilizing.

Jin clapped his hands, just like an elf would, to summon the attention of the gods to him, and then whispered a prayer. Tinker floated in place, gazing at the female who would have been her mother, if everything had gone differently. Had it been chance that put Gracie on the same ship as Esme - or some dream inspired plan of Tinker's real mother?

Jin finished his prayer and turned to Tinker. "Thank you. Truly you must have been sent by the gods to us."

"No, just the wizard of Oz."

Chapter 21: No Place Like Home

Wolf was ready to kill something. When they should have been reacting quickly, instead they stalled with negotiations. He demanded that one of the Stone Clan return to the enclaves to guard the noncombatants. Earth Son assigned the task to Jewel Tears but then tried to maneuver True Flame into qualifying it as a failure on Wolf's part to protect the enclaves.

"I can choose to protect the enclaves," Wolf said, "and leave you to face the dragon."

"We will have the dreadnaught." Earth Son pointed out.

"No, we won't." True Flame snapped. "Human weapons can't pierce the dragon shielding. The dreadnaught is good at spotting and attacking ground troops. It would be an aerial banquet table for the dragon."

"We should travel light." True Flame continued. "One Hand each. The fewer we have to protect the better."

Wolf let Wraith chose which of his sekasha would remain. Wolf drew Little Horse and Stormsong aside; of the sekasha returning to the enclaves, they were the ones best suited to interacting with humans. "Call Maynard. Let him know what his people might be facing. They need to know that their weapons won't work on this."

***

Even as Jewel Tears and the extra sekasha left, Earth Son was still arguing True Flame's decision. "We should wait until it comes to us. Running around, looking for it will only weaken our position."

Wolf scoffed at this idea. "Sit here on our hands while it does what it will to the city?"

"Property damage can be fixed later," Earth Son said.

"And what of the humans?" Wolf said.

Earth Son had the gall to say, "I do not know why you fuss so. They are short lived anyhow."

"I think we should go and be the heroes." Forest Moss struck a heroic pose. "Females are attracted to males of action."

"What females?" Earth Son cried.

"Poor Earth Son, I might have one blind eye-" Forest Moss tapped his cheek under his ruined eye and the reached out to tap both of Earth Son's. "-but apparently you have two."