Elfhome

39: MAKING PEACE

If Jewel Tear was a drug, then Tommy was addicted. He tried quitting cold turkey, pushing on ahead, carrying Spot to fill his hands. Like any good drug, though, the hooks were sunk deep into him already, urging him to do stupid things. He clung tight to his anger to armor himself against the urges. He might care about Jewel Tear against his will and all common sense, but she wasn’t in love with him. The oni made sure she understood all the horrors of the whelping pens. Tommy was a convenient tool, a way to delay the inevitable if she was recaptured by the oni.

The thing that pissed him off the most was the fact that Jin was right. Jewel Tear kept going on and on about Windwolf offering sponsorship to Tommy. Behind that “bitch about my ex” was the assumption that the half-oni would follow the tengu’s lead and tie themselves to a domana. Despite the cat ears and the little cousin that was more dog than boy, Tommy was an acceptable boy toy because one day he was going to be Beholden.

Someone’s. Anyone’s. Not hers — at least she wasn’t asking.

Part of him — linked strongly to his dick — desperately wanted her to ask.

The intelligent part of him was terrified that she might, because his dick would agree in an instant. And the intelligent part knew that it would be a bad, bad thing. The half-oni wanted a seat at the in-crowd’s Round Table. Pittsburgh was a Wind Clan town, and the way things were going, it was going to stay that way. Windwolf had hinted that the Stone Clan domana were chosen by their clan to be sacrificial lambs. Someone had picked Jewel Tear for shits and giggles because she was Windwolf’s ex. Now that she had lost all her sekasha, she was in danger of becoming as much a social leper as Forest Moss. Yeah, part of him wanted to be her knight in shining armor and save her from that whole mess, but that was the little head talking. Teaming up with Jewel Tear would be throwing his people in a tar pit.

Of course it might be just his little head talking to assume she would even ask. She might be planning on digging a big hole and burying him in it as soon as they got close to Pittsburgh. She might not want the other elves to find out she was screwing the oni spawn. Once she was safe in town, she would have no more need of him as a boy toy. If she still “needed” him, it would be as muscle, and Tommy didn’t want to set his family up to be anyone’s goons. All he wanted for his family was to live in peace.

But that took Tommy back to how Jin was right, which only made him even more annoyed. Jin claimed that you had to create peace first before you could live in it. Tommy had already proven Jin right once by saving Windwolf from Malice. He was proving it again by taking Jewel Tear back to Pittsburgh with detailed information about where the oni forces were located. He thought he could make his stand once and retreat to the back line and let the elves duke it out. Obviously he was going to have sit at the damn Round Table, be an ally, and be part of the war effort if he was going to protect his family.

The question was, whose knight in shining armor was he going to be?

He still didn’t know the answer to that question when they reached train tracks and his hidden hoverbike.

Nor did he know when they rumbled through Pittsburgh. There were gossamers hanging over the faire grounds, unloading hordes of elves in Stone Clan black. Fire Clan red surrounded the field. There was no sign of Wind Clan blue.

What the hell had happened while he was gone?

They threaded their way through the royal forces, drawing stares. Jewel Tear was tucked behind him, pressed tight and arms around him. Spot was balanced in front of him, legs and feet dangling over the handlebar. They found Prince True Flame at a tent, leaning over a table covered with maps.

“Where’s Wolf Who Rules?” Tommy asked. He wanted Windwolf there when Jewel Tear gave the oni position. He wanted the elves to unite and kick oni butt — not each other’s.

Prince True Flame ignored him, staring at Jewel Tear’s shorn hair. “Are you hurt, child?”

“Where is Wolf?” Jewel Tear flipped through the maps on the table. “He should hear what I have to say. And who is arriving?”

“Darkness, Sunder, and Cana Lily.”

The names meant nothing to Tommy, but Jewel Tear’s eyes went wide.

“They sent two Harbingers!” Jewel Tear gasped.

He did know what Harbingers were. They were the seasoned warlords that the elves had used to fight the oni on Earth. There had been a dozen that kicked oni butt back to Onihida while the elves pulled down the pathways between Earth and Elfhome. Tommy could guess which two of the three were the Harbingers. One of these things is not like the others.

“The sekasha demanded that the Stone Clan send veterans,” Prince True Flame said.

“We’ll need them.” Jewel Tear found the map she wanted and traced the train track as it slashed through wilderness. “The oni have strongholds built deep in the wilderness that they access by train.” She marked a point on the train tracks and ran her fingers southward. “The camps are south enough that we wouldn’t see them via gossamer as we come in from Aum Renau. I counted four in all, but there could be more. There were thousands of warriors at each camp — wargs and horrors. They also have another whelping pen.”

Jewel Tear shivered only slightly, but Prince True Flame caught it.

The prince flicked a hand to signal a female Wyvern forward. “My people will see you to the hospice to be cared for.”

Such a polite way of saying that she would be given an abortion.

“There is no need.” Jewel Tear tried to wave off the Wyvern. “I was not raped. They did not have time.”

Only a lifetime serving his brutal father allowed Tommy to keep surprise off his face. If Jewel Tear were truly fertile, they’d done it more than enough times to almost guarantee that she was pregnant. She could have stayed quiet and let their assumptions stand and be rid of any child he’d gotten on her.

“You have been battered and sorely used.” The female warrior chided Jewel Tear like a mother dealing with a cranky child.

Jewel Tear’s gaze turned cold and hard. “Yes, I am sore and tired and dirty and hungry, but there is much I need to explain about the oni force. This one freed me.” She indicated Tommy with a wave of her hand. “While I was being moved from one camp to the whelping pens. We were able to kill all the oni transporting me, but sooner or later they will realize I’ve slipped through their fingers, and they will move. We must act quickly before they can shift again.”

This one? He didn’t even rate a name?

“We cannot attack until the Harbingers have off-loaded all their people and given them a chance to organize themselves. Go, see to your health.”

Jewel Tear warned the female Wyvern off with a look. “I should find what is left of my own household, and they will attend me.”

Prince True Flame gave her a pitying look. “Many of those who survived the attack have left Pittsburgh.”

Jewel Tear flinched as if struck but still managed, “Please, let me go to what little I have left.”

Tommy watched her walk away, flanked by two Hands of Wyverns. He hated that he wanted to hold and comfort her even as she walked away without a glance toward him or a thank-you.

The hurt of it was such that he drove the whole way back to the warren before he remembered that he’d had Bingo move his family. He pulled to stop in front of the warehouse, feeling as hollow and empty as the building. He had known she didn’t love him, that she was just using him, so really it had all gone the way he’d expected. Somehow, he thought it wouldn’t hurt because he knew how it was going to end.

And the very worst of it — he missed the feel of her pressed against his back.

“Stupid elf bitch,” Tommy growled.

Spot gave him a sad look, reached up, and petted Tommy on the head.

Tommy sighed and took out his phone. They both needed a bath, something to eat, and sleep. Depending on where Bingo moved their family, they might as well stay here for the night. Bingo had probably texted him. There were a dozen messages on his phone, all from Bingo. The most recent just a desperate “call me.”

His cousin answered his phone with “Shit is flying all over the place. You better have the bitch.”

“I delivered her to True Flame already,” Tommy growled. “What’s happening?”

“Two Stone Clan domana showed up after you left. Forge and Iron Mace. The dumb fucks grabbed Oilcan and disappeared. Tinker’s crazy pissed off — she’s got the tengu tearing the city apart trying to find her cousin. Then, to top it off, she’s taken off without telling anyone where she was going, and Windwolf is out trying to find her.”

He felt completely blindsided. Prince True Flame hadn’t even mentioned the two domana. “Why did they take Oilcan?”

Bingo explained what had happened in Pittsburgh since Tommy left, from the discovery that the cousins were descended from Stone Clan domana to Oilcan being named head of the clan to the arrival of their great-grandfather, who apparently was bent on transforming Oilcan “back” into an elf. “It’s all over the news. Chloe Polanski is having a field day. The humans are pissed to hell at the elves, and the elves look like they’re about to start carving each other up.”

No wonder there weren’t any Wind Clan elves in Oakland as the Stone Clan Harbingers off-loaded. That Prince True Flame had ignored the question of Windwolf’s whereabouts. Was it really the sekasha’s demands that brought the Harbingers to Pittsburgh, or, after egging the Wind Clan into a fight, had the Stone Clan just loaded the deck?

“Stupid-ass shits!” This was not the time that the elves should be jerking each other off. He was aware that Bingo was telling him where he’d moved the warren. It was a good safe place as long as the oni weren’t overrunning the city. If the elves went to war with each other, the oni might just do that.

Tommy cursed. He had just jumped through hoops, risked his life and Spot’s to get Jewel Tear back to Pittsburgh, and the elves were about to render it all useless. Of all the shit-stupid luck. .

No, this wasn’t bad luck — this was careful planning. If Earth Son was working with the oni, it wasn’t with Lord Tomtom, it was with Kajo. The damn greater blood was a master of twisting everyone and everything. This had all the hallmarks of a Kajo plot.

“Tommy?” Bingo realized that Tommy had gone silent.

“The tengu haven’t found Oilcan yet?”

“Still looking, last I heard. Tinker told them just to find him, not to take him back. Apparently this grandfather of theirs has a lot of clout in the Stone Clan. She doesn’t want to start a war.”

Tinker might not, but Kajo did. If Forge made Oilcan an elf, Tinker would be pissed, but she wouldn’t start a war. Not the girl Tommy knew from the racetrack; she was too smart for that. But he was fairly sure that she would deal out a world of pain on anyone that hurt Oilcan. Kajo only needed to make sure that Oilcan died in his grandfather’s care.

Unless the tengu realized that Kajo was pulling the strings, they wouldn’t find Oilcan in time. Tommy hurried through the warren to his room, hoping that Bingo had been in too much of a rush to think of everything. He’d learned very young that information was the key to staying alive — gathering it up and then keeping it to yourself. He opened his closet and triggered the latch to his secret storage cubbyhole. Everything was still in place. He pulled out his maps.

Forge was newly arrived in Pittsburgh. The tengu would assume that the domana didn’t know his way around or have access to cars or trucks. They’d be searching Oakland and downtown and maybe beyond the Rim, in the virgin forest. Kajo, though, would make sure that Forge could get to any place easily. A random human that had a truck. An elf that knew how to drive would be bumped into Forge’s path. A tengu? No, not a tengu, not after what Jin did to the last ones that endangered Oilcan. But maybe a half-oni that didn’t know how pissed off Tommy would be if he found out.

So someplace impossible to find, controlled by the Stone Clan, and that had enough magic to power a transformation spell.

He found his map of magic springs within a hundred miles. The oni built camps on top of a handful of the strongest and used cloaking spells to hide them. The Stone Clan had been given a huge chunk of land to the south of Pittsburgh, just beyond the Rim. Last week the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had published a map showing how the land was divided up. Forest Moss didn’t have the resources to develop his land, nor had Jewel Tear. Earth Son — Kajo’s little puppet — could have started clearing land. And yes, not far from the Rim, in Earth Son’s parcel, was a very strong magical spring.

“I’m going here.” He showed Spot the map. “Right here where I marked this. Take this to Bingo. Tell him to have these other springs checked out. I think I’m right, but I’m not sure. We need to find Oilcan and protect him. Kajo is after him.”