Wolf Who Rules

"Oh gods!" Tinker leapt back and the other sekasha drew their swords. The reel protested the sudden heavy load as the frozen body hit solid earth, the line vibrating. She killed the power before the line could snap. "Don't touch it!"

"I think it is dead." Pony had his sword at its throat just in case.

"The cold itself is dangerous. Don't touch it directly, but get it out."

Tinker kept her distance. The sekasha looped straps carefully around the outstretched limbs and hauled the thing out of the liquid earth. The creature was half Tinker's height, had turtle shell but long scaly limbs, webbed feet and hands. Long straight black hair fringed a bare, depressed spot on a human-like head, and its face was a weird cross of a chubby monkey and a turtle. It wore a harness of leather with various pointy things that could be weapons attached to it.

Pony pricked the creature with his sword, eyed the wound. "It does not bleed. It is indeed frozen."

"Ooookay," Tinker said. "It is probably safe to assume that it will stay dead, even if it thaws out."

"An elf would." Pony sheathed his sword.

"What do you think it is?" Tinker asked.

"It's a kappa." A voice called from above them.

Tinker and her Hand turned, looking upwards. Riki perched on branches of an ironwood, high overhead. He ducked back, behind the trunk, as the sekasha pulled out their pistols.

"Wait, don't fire." Tinker ordered. "Riki! Riki! What the hell is this?"

"I told you." He peered out around the trunk. "It's a kappa. Ugly little brats aren't they? In Japan, it's believed that they get their great strength from water in that brain depression and if you can trick them into bowing and spilling out the water, they have to return to the water realm to regain their strength."

Stormsong signed 'kill him?' in blade talk. Tinker signed back 'wait.'

"It's an oni?" Tinker asked. "Or an animal?"

"That's a blurred line with the oni," Riki said. "I think you would call it oni - they're fairly clever in a homicidal way. The greater bloods made them by mixing animals with lesser bloods, just like Tomtom did with Chiyo. Legend has it that they used monkeys and turtles - a pretty sick mix if you ask me."

"I didn't see any while we were making the gate."

"There aren't any in Pittsburgh. They're clever, but not enough to pass as a human."

"So you're saying it came through the gate?"

"The oni use them for special ops; they're strong swimmers and wrestlers."

Tinker looked back into the discontinuity, the slow drift of blue mist. What were the oni up to? Were they just testing these strange waters to see where they led - or were they trying to salvage the gate?

Then again, was Riki telling the truth that there were no kappa in Pittsburgh?

"What are you doing here, Riki?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Talk? Talk about what? How can I even trust anything that comes out of that lying mouth of yours?"

"I'm sorry, Tinker, about everything that happened. I'm really am. I know you're pissed the hell at me, but I need to talk to you about the dragon."

"What dragon?"

"The one that attacked you. The one I pulled off you. The one that might have killed you and all your people if I hadn't called it."

"So it was a dragon?"

"Not an Elfhome dragon, but yes, a dragon."

"An Onihida dragon?"

"What does it matter where it's from? It's a freaking dragon. Can we just move on?"

"Just answer the fucking question!" She shouted at Riki. "It's rather simple. Was it an Onihida dragon?"

Riki paced the limb like an agitated crow. "For a long, long time dragons were worshipped as gods, both on Earth and Onihida. They lived in 'the heavens' and had great powers that they often used to help humans and tengu alike. All the legends about dragons go on about the heavens and traveling from to Onihida or Earth and back. What that mystical shit might have actually been talking about is travel between universes. So dragons may be native to Onihida - or might be from someplace else. I don't know."

If Riki had told her the truth about his childhood, he was raised on Earth and probably was less in tune with the mystical than she was. Not that she was particularly "in tune."

"The dragon cast an oni shield spell." She pointed out the flaw in Riki's "not from Onihida" logic.

"No, that's not oni magic, its dragon magic. The oni true bloods figured out how to enslave dragons and stole it from them."

So he said - but how could she know if he was telling the truth. "Dragon magic? Oni magic? What's the difference?"

"Originally oni magic was only bio-engineering, just like the elves."

"So the solid hologram stuff? Like your wings?"

"That's dragon magic."

"And the tengu? They're both oni and dragon magic?"

Riki did an angry little hop. "Tinker! I just want to ask you one simple question, not give you a history lesson."

"What do you want, Riki?"

"The dragon - when it attacked you - did it mark you with a symbol or tattoo or something like that?"

"Strange that you ask, but yeah, it put one right here." She half-turned and patted her butt cheek. "It says 'kiss my ass.'"