Wood Sprites

Yves glanced toward the twins, apparently hoping that they could give him a clue. Louise could only sense onrushing disaster in every direction. “No,” Yves said finally. “Let him come. Perhaps he has some useful news.” He turned from the door to point at a set of Elvish wyvern armor standing in an alcove. “Pack that.” He pointed at a Van Gogh oil painting beside the armor. “Sell that.”

The front door swung open and Ambassador Feng walked through. He checked at the sight of Yves and all the bodyguards in the foyer.

“Yves?” Feng said in confusion.

“What are you doing here?” Yves snapped in English, putting lie to his claim at the museum that Feng couldn’t speak English.

“Where is Aumvoutui? A force from the MSS just landed at Newark. .”

“Have you gone native?” Yves interrupted him. “Use words, not letters.”

“The Ministry of State Security for the People’s Republic of China,” Feng growled out. “They have the authority to arrest me and my entire staff and most likely that’s why they’re in New York. The people of the Republic have realized that they’ve shouldered the funding for the hyperphase gate, five spaceships to a mythical colony that doesn’t exist, and the settlement to the United States for the loss of Pittsburgh. Trillions of yuan. All so our people can return to Elfhome. They are not happy. Riots have broken out in Beijing. They make your Americans look like misbehaving children. They’re calling for blood.”

“Another century, another witch hunt,” Yves stated coolly. “We have taught you the song. Now dance to it.”

“It’s not as simple as Aumvoutui said. They now have cameras everywhere. There is no more anonymity. I can’t just disappear and resurface someplace else.”

“We warned you of that danger when you came to this world.”

“The bank account you gave me for such emergencies is empty. Aumvoutui must—”

Yves pressed his hand against the ambassador’s chest and spoke a word that sounded Elvish. The ambassador went to his knees with a cry of pain. A spell glyph appeared on his forehead, gleaming brilliantly. “You must remember your place. You were my little pet project. I alone made you. I am your god.” Yves cupped the male’s chin in his hand and whispered menacingly as tears ran down the ambassador’s cheeks. “The pure black of your hair. The raven wings of your eyebrows. The strength of your chin. Every line on your face, I picked for you. I planted you into a female’s womb and gave you life. I made you, and I can unmake you with a word.”

“Forgiveness,” Feng cried, his voice breaking from pain. “I was afraid—”

“Humans are lowly beasts, products of random chance, barely above monkeys. You are a masterpiece of spell-working.”

“Even lions fear large packs of monkeys,” Feng whispered.

Yves growled another word, and Feng screamed as his veins suddenly blazed under his skin as if his blood had turned to liquid fire. The ambassador convulsed into a tight knot, shrieking.

Louise bit hard on her lower lip, trying to keep in an answering scream of pure fear. She had never heard an adult male cry out in pain before; she had never heard a sound so raw and terrifying. Jillian clung tight to Louise, burying her face in Louise’s shoulder, sobbing with terror.

Yves spoke a word and Feng slumped to the floor, panting hoarsely as his skin faded back to normal.

Yves stepped back from the male. “You will bring the dogs sniffing at my heels if you try to hide at my feet. You will go and be the warrior I made you and draw them off my scent.”

“Yes, husepavua,” Feng whispered.

“Follow the plan as you were told to do in emergencies like this. Use one of your alternate identities to go to the island and cross to Onihida. Someone has to keep rein on the oni until the Dufae heir can be caught and harnessed — or we find someone else to open a gate for us.”

“Yes, husepavua

.”

Yves turned away, not bothering to watch the male stagger to his feet and stumble out of the mansion. He walked down the hall to stop at the next painting and pointed to it. “Sell that.” He pointed to a small statue. “Pack that.” He turned and gazed at the twins. “It’s a shame they’re not true identical twins. I’ll have to be more careful with them. Take them down to the casting chamber and put them into a spell cage. I’m sure they would figure out how to escape anything mechanical.”

* * *

Louise tried to tell herself that the spell cage was a fascinating awesome thing. In almost any other instance, it would be. Being carried down into a maze of dimly lit caves, shackled to the floor, and locked inside one, however, was really, really scary.

“Right,” Jillian muttered after the elves had trooped back upstairs. “This is a sticky wicket.”

“Could be worse.” Louise knew it could be much worse. She had at least kept the elves from discovering what she had shoved into her socks as they snapped the manacle about her right ankle. By luck or that weird sense of knowing what was coming, she had pushed the Swiss army knife painfully deep into her shoe.