Wolf Who Rules

Mickey started to say something but Keiko poked him.

"We're not allowed to say."

"What are you doing so far away anyhow?"

"Joey just got his wings." Mickey said. "We were on his first long flight and got cut off by a troop of oni moving through the area. We tried to go around them and got lost. When we hit the city's edge, Keiko said we should call Riki. I'm the one that remembered the number."

"Then all you would do was cry." Keiko said.

Mickey pulled up his legs, curling into himself.

Keiko gave him a look of remorse and then swung down. She rummaged through the shelves and then handed up a bottle of water and a power bar to her younger cousin. "Here. You can have the last chocolate one."

Keiko put a second bottle and bar up beside Mickey. Wordlessly, she left an offering of food and water for Tinker down on the floor, carefully staying outside of Tinker's reach, and then swung back to the loft.

Tinker hadn't had a power bar as an elf - she expected something tasteless. She was surprised how good it tasted. "Oh, these are yummy."

Mickey nodded in agreement, instantly happy by Keiko's offering. "I didn't think elves could speak English."

Keiko pinched Mickey.

"Ow! What?"

"Don't display how ignorant you are. She was a human until the viceroy turned her into an elf a few months ago."

Mickey looked at Tinker, recognition dawning on him. "Oh, she's the Dufae girl?"

"Yes." Keiko said.

Fear filled Mickey's face.

"Why are you scared of me?" Tinker asked.

"We know what Riki had to do to you." Mickey whispered. "How he had to turn you over to the oni."

"Riki didn't want to us to come to Elfhome," Keiko said. "He said that either the elves would find us, or the oni would. Better stay on Earth where we were at least free. But the oni came to our house and took Joey hostage. Riki sent us on ahead to be with our aunt, but he stayed to work for the oni - to try and get Joey back."

"He never told me about you."

"If he told you, then the kitsune would know, and then the oni would know. He couldn't tell you the truth about anything - or he'd put us in danger."

"You hate the tengu now - don't you?" Mickey whispered.

A few days ago, Tinker probably would have said yes. She knew that when she found the MP3 player, she'd been angry enough to beat Riki to a pulp again. Now, with the dead in Chinatown, and the children looking at her in fear, she couldn't hate all the innocent strangers. "No."

Keiko scoffed, disbelieving. "I'd never forgive anyone that did that to me."

"I saw what Lord Tomtom did to those that failed him - and it scared the living shit out of me." She shuddered with the memory of the torture; the flash of bright blades and white of bone stripped clean of flesh. "I was willing to do almost anything to keep the knives away from me."

"So you forgive Riki?"

There was something about the darkness that demanded honesty. "I'm still angry at him. But I was with the oni for nearly a month-I can understand why he did it and don't think I can hate him for it. He took my shit and never complained, and when he could, he protected me."

There was a sudden roar outside and a hoverbike - lift engines at full - popped up and landed on the massive branch outside the door. Its headlight flooded the room with stark white blinding light.

Tinker stood and called magic, wrapping the wind around her.

"Tinker domi!" Stormsong's voice came out of the light.

"Stormsong?" Tinker squinted into the glare.

The headlight snapped off. Stormsong sat on a custom delta Tinker had done for a charity auction last year. Somehow Stormsong had managed to land and balance on the branch - it was going to take work to get it down in one piece. In her right hand the sekasha held a shotgun resting across the handlebars and trained at the cabin door.

"How the hell did you find me?" Tinker asked.

"I closed my eyes and went where I was needed." Stormsong glanced beyond Tinker to the kids. "They're tengu."

Tinker realized that her being safe meant the kids were now in danger. "I promised that they wouldn't be hurt."

"That was a silly thing to do," Stormsong said.

"They're just kids." Tinker moved to protect them with her shield.

"Kids grow up," Stormsong said.

Tinker shook her head. "I can't let you hurt them. I promised."

"Yes, Tinker ze domi." Stormsong said in High Tongue.

Tinker released the winds. The kids huddle against the back corner of the loft bed.

"We won't hurt you," she told them, "but I need to leave."

"Hey," Keiko called. She pulled off a necklace and scrambled forward to dangle it out to Tinker. "Take this. It will protect you."

"From what?"

"Tengu."

Tinker looped the necklace over her neck and picked her way out onto the branch. "How the hell did you get a hoverbike the whole way up here? I know the lift engine can't do a hundred feet straight up - or down."

"Flying blind." Stormsong uncocked her shotgun and holstered it. "Hang tight to me - this is going to be tricky. And you might want to close your eyes."