Threads That Bind And Break

Threads That Bind And Break

Gossamers filled the skies over Pittsburgh. Translucent as jellyfish and shimmering with thousands of tiny fractured rainbows, the massive beasts defied all logic.

Law watched the gossamers with new eyes. She grew up with the sight of the great living airships swimming above the skyscrapers. As a child, she’d accepted their existence without question; impossible creatures lurked in every corner of Pittsburgh. Since June, though, she’d learned many dangerous secrets and dark truths. The Skin Clan twisted sea creatures into flying airships by using powerful spells. There were larger, more dangerous beasts scattered across the planet that they’d made for war. Nor did the Skin Clan limit their biological tampering to animals; they carried out countless experiments on their slaves. They were cruel and immoral masters and they were in Pittsburgh. Somewhere. Carefully hidden.

Law studied the airships, aware for the first time of the menace that they represented. She never realized before that there were differences between the beasts and the gondolas slung under their bodies; most likely because she’d only seen the viceroy’s airships coming and going. The one lone airship over the airfield was being untethered to make room for the incoming ones. It was the viceroy’s surviving gossamer, as the other animal had been killed earlier in the summer. Its gondola was Wind Clan blue, the importance of which she never knew until June. The color turned the wooden craft into an unmistakable war flag.

The incoming airships were carried by larger beasts. The gondolas were black, trimmed with red or green, and bristled with weapons. The Stone Clan had arrived in force. The prows of the black-and-red gondolas jutted out with saw-like teeth gleaming like blood. The largest drifted toward the Wind Clan gossamer with the menace of a river shark.

The viceroy’s airship fought its tethers, dragging the dozens of elves holding onto the mooring ropes.

Law had three coolers full of fish in the back of her Dodge for Caraway’s majordomo, Chili Pepper. Alton Kryskill’s Ford pickup was backed into the motor court and they were off-loading two wild boars. Normally another forager at an enclave meant that Law had screwed up her delivery time and had lost a customer. Yes, she was running late. Caraway’s enclave, though, was bracing for an invasion from the Stone Clan; they’d buy from both foragers and beg for more.

Law sat on her tailgate, listening to the conversations around her. Since June, she’d had a second unofficial job: freelance spy. She wanted to find the Skin Clan before they could engineer the downfall of Pittsburgh. Nearby gunfire as they arrived had lured Bare Snow off to investigate. Law remained to find out what the enclaves knew about the incoming Stone Clan domana.

The Kryskills all had that wild and wooly Norse god look going on. Alton had slipped a few notches on the scruffy scale since she last seen him in May; his dark blond hair was down to his shoulders and he’d let his chronic five o’clock go to full beard. Alton was getting bad news via his cell phone. He didn’t want to be overheard; he’d drifted to the farthest corner of the motor courtyard. Law could barely make out his snarled questions. “Who? When? Why?” Judging by Alton’s free hand, coiling into a fist, someone was in for a serious beat down. The Kryskills were not people you wanted pissed off at you. His family had pulled an actual cannon out of thin air and kicked monster butt in July. Law wanted to know what had Alton looking so angry.

Not that Alton was the only one upset in the motor courtyard. The elves weren’t happy about their incoming guests.

“Harbingers!” Caraway’s cook worried at the skirt of his white apron. “Harbingers! I can’t believe they sent Harbingers. Here! To our territory! They mean war.”

Chili Pepper focused on counting out American dollars to pay Alton. “You need to wet age the boar and then cook it slowly over a low temperature; you will not be able to serve it tonight.”

“Don’t tell me how to cook,” the cook snapped.

“Then focus on your duties and not on things you cannot change.” Chili Pepper tucked away his leather billfold. He re-counted the bills he’d taken from it. “We are hosting Darkness of Stone. We cannot bring dishonor to Wolf Who Rules by doing it poorly. The distant voices say Darkness will have his six Hands plus three Hands from Cold Mountain Temple and another hundred laedin-caste on top of that.”

Law clenched her jaw to keep her dismay off her face. The warriors with Darkness alone could easily overwhelm the viceroy’s force. The combined might of the three incoming Stone Clan domana might even outnumber the royal troops.

“We don’t have enough meat to feed that many warriors!” the cook cried.

“Calm yourself. Law is here with water produce.” Chili Pepper waved to her. “You can serve the waewaeli tonight and roast the boar tomorrow.”

Alton glanced her way and his eyes narrowed in what might be anger.

What did I do to piss off the Kryskills? The monster fight stated the Kryskills’ alliance fairly clear. She thought they were on the same side. Then again, no one knew what side Law was on. She nodded at Alton, wishing that he’d lose interest in her.

One of the saw-toothed airships drifted over the courtyard, filling the sky and throwing everyone into deep shadows.

Speaking of not knowing which side a person was on…

Alton glanced upward and then focused back on his cell phone.

The cook whispered a curse as the gondola slid overhead, revealing rows of mysterious hatches. Judging by the way all the elves stepped back under the eaves, they were most likely some type of gun ports. The Wind Clan’s reaction to the weapons was unsettling; they didn’t trust the incoming forces.

One thing she’d learned about being a spy was that occasionally you had to risk a few questions to understand everything going on. “Is that his? Darkness?” Law pointed upward.

Chili Pepper nodded in reply to her. He snapped fingers to break his household out of their panic. “The Wyverns will guarantee that the Stone Clan does not harm us. This will be no different than Winter Court. We have done this before domou took Caraway as Beholden, we can do it again.”

“He is a Harbinger?” Law had never heard the word before. “What does that mean?” How trustworthy could he be if all Caraway’s people were scared?

Chili Pepper pursed his mouth like he didn’t like answering, but he did. “Harbingers are our greatest warlords from the Rebellion. For thousands of years, they battled the Skin Clan, taking us from slaves to freedom.”

“Ruthless,” Cook muttered. “Harbingers would level cities. Streets would run with blood.”

“Shush,” Chili Pepper whispered. “We don’t gossip to outsiders about guests.”

There was a loud snap of ropes from the airfield.

“Get her! Get her! There is no one on her!” a distant voice shouted in Elvish.

Law spun around to see the Wind Clan gossamer flying away, trailing broken mooring ropes. As she watched, a dozen tengu rose up from the city, black wings laboring to gain altitude to chase after the airship.

The elves of Caraway’s enclave cried out in wordless dismay.

“The tengu are domi’s Beholden.” Chili Pepper snapped his fingers again. “They will fetch back the gossamer. Get these wild pigs to the slaughterhouse, and carefully. Don’t spill any blood on the cobblestones. Our guests will be here in minutes and it would be in poor taste to have bloody paving.”

While the elves struggled with the big dead pigs, Alton walked over to Law’s Dodge. Normally Law didn’t hang out with men. Most guys didn’t deal well with a woman that could out “man” them at hunting, fishing, shooting, and fighting kind of things. They seemed to think that all those activities were pissing contests where women shouldn’t enter because they lacked a penis. To compensate, most guys turned into loud-mouthed jerks. Alton Kryskill was a rare exception, probably because he had an older sister that could kick the teeth out of any moron who said women should act like the weaker sex.

Law and Alton had gone to high school together and been in the same clubs. Ecology. Rifle team. It made them friends of sorts.

“Hey.” Alton put out his fist to bump hers. “Where do you stand in all this? You do know it’d be bad if the oni came out on top in this?”

The oni were the least of their problems but Law kept her secrets to herself. “I’m with the elves in this.” By that she meant the elves that could be trusted. The secret traitors among the elves were their biggest problem. Who were these incoming Stone Clan domana really?

Alton nodded as if it was what he expected her to say. “Look, we’re trying to get everyone that we can trust in on this. Tinker domi’s cousin, Oilcan, was taken, we think by his elf grandfather. Tinker domi is freaking out over this. We’re going to find Oilcan, even if we have to tear the city apart to find him.”

“Who exactly is ‘we’?” Law asked since Alton was the last person she expected to call Tinker by her correct title. The Kryskills were a wild and woolly bunch, even for Pittsburgh. Someone had been drilling protocol into Alton. If Law weren’t living with an elf, she wouldn’t have picked up the difference. Most humans in Pittsburgh called the girl Princess Tinker even though it wasn’t her title.

“Team Tinker. My cousin is the team’s business manager. We only want people we can trust looking for Oilcan; people we know are human and aren’t working with the oni.”

That did narrow the field down to kids that they went to school with. Assuming that the Kryskills could actually be trusted. The question remained why Alton was being all so proper.

“I’ll keep my eyes open.” Law waved toward the bed of her Dodge. “I’ve got to stop at Station Square. A bunch of friends called needing help with their booths at Oktoberfest. I promised them I’d gather stuff for them.”

“They’re still holding Oktoberfest?” Alton pointed toward the crowded airfield. “With all that going on?”

“They moved the location because of the war, but yeah, the shrine gets installed today.”

Alton nodded his understanding. He held out his phone. “Here’s my number. Call me if you find anything. Be careful. The oni might be behind Oilcan’s kidnapping but just the same, his grandfather and great uncle are serious heavy hitters.”

Law was weaned on videos of what Windwolf could do if pissed off. “Just your family and Team Tinker against two domana and how many sekasha?”

Alton dropped his voice to a whisper. “Jin is flying into the city to personally supervise the search. If you spot them, call me, and the tengu will have our back.”

The Kryskills were allied with the tengu. That was an interesting piece of information. How did that happen?

“Will do,” Law promised.

The wild boar had been carried off.

Chili Pepper made shooing motions at Alton. “Go! Go! Make room for Law! Bring more tomorrow. As much as possible.”

Alton waved as he pulled out, making room for her Dodge. Law backed into the motor court thinking about Oilcan’s kidnapping. Bare Snow had told her about Forge and his missing son and beloved dead wife. Rumor had it that Forge planned to stay in Pittsburgh for Oilcan’s entire life, however long that may be. It didn’t make sense that Forge would take Oilcan to harm him. The kidnapping had all the fingerprints of the Skin Clan; they most likely wanted a war between the Wind Clan and Stone Clan. Oilcan was merely a pawn in a hidden game.

It was her experience that grandfathers couldn’t be reasoned with; that part of their brains had atrophied from disuse. Someone could use their prejudice to manipulate them into stupidity; Law’s Aunt Rosie excelled at that. Admit that they were wrong? No, grandfathers didn’t do that. At least, neither one of hers would.

Having Team Tinker tracking down Forge might be a bad thing. If Tinker refused to take the bait, the Skin Clan might settle for a war between the elves and the humans.

“Forgiveness.” Chili Pepper interrupted Law’s thought. “I need to ask you about the mutt.”

“Who?”

“The half-breed with the ill-omened name. The female child you found at midsummer’s eve.” He meant Bare Snow. “I don’t remember her name exactly. Something about death.”

“What about her?” Law struggled to keep her voice level.

“Tinker-domi exiled one of Steam Vent’s household. He was in charge of the Union Station since the disguised oni were discovered working on the trains. Domi was quite angry with him for allowing harm to come to the Stone Clan children. She has made it clear that anyone that allows a child to be hurt will be exiled from Pittsburgh.”

Technically, Bare Snow was still a child, since she was a few years shy of her majority. It made her approximately seventeen. She had begged all the enclaves to take her in and they’d turned her away. Nor had anyone bothered to find out if she found a safe place to stay. Heads would roll if Tinker found out.

“I found her someplace to live,” Law said vaguely.

“Alone?” Chili Pepper’s tone indicated that wasn’t acceptable.

“No, it’s a human household.”

Chili Pepper’s eyes narrowed as he considered the ramifications. “Can they be trusted? They are not abusing her?”

As if anyone could abuse Bare Snow without getting a knife to the throat.

“They can be trusted,” Law said.

“They are not using her for sex?”

Law blushed, thinking of last night. “What—what do you mean?”

“How do you say—pimping her?”

Obviously Chili Pepper had not a clue that Bare Snow had been trained to be an assassin. “No! Nothing like that! She seems very happy. She picks apples and such.”

“Ah! Good. Good. Domi would be pleased.” Apparently that was all that mattered in his mind as he focused on more pressing matters, like the incoming Harbingers.

“Ok-to-ber-fest,” Bare Snow chanted in English, as she pulled on her panties. She’d slipped into the Dodge’s passenger window just as Law had pulled away from Caraway’s. The spell tattooed on her torso required her to be naked in order to be invisible. “Oktoberfest. At Oktoberfest, we will drink bear.”

“Beer,” Law corrected her. It earned her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. For a trained assassin, Bare Snow loved to cuddle. It was distracting when she did it mostly naked.

“At Oktoberfest, we will drink beer and eat pierogies,” Bare Snow stated firmly despite the fact that she couldn’t stand the taste of beer. There would be plenty for elves to drink; all sold under their Elvish names.

“Yes.”

The female pulled on her blue sundress that covered all her tattoos but not much else. Law rarely could get her to wear much more; the elf liked the ease of undressing. Law wasn’t sure what they were going to do come winter.

Bare Snow dropped back to Elvish. “What are pierogies again?”

“Potato and cheese dumplings.” The elves didn’t have potatoes, as keva beans were firmly established as their main starch crop before potatoes were introduced in Europe on Earth. Nor did they have peanuts, which probably explained their fixation with peanut butter.

“Ah, yes, pierogies are good.” Bare Snow unbraided her long blue-black hair, taking out long sharp ironwood needles as she did. They were going to see Usagi’s kids, who loved to play with Bare Snow’s hair.

Law explained what she’d learned from Alton.

Bare Snow added what she’d found out. “The gunfire was Tinker domi’s troops clearing the oni invaders out of her cousin’s enclave. I arrived too late to help, beyond saving a puppy. It was so sad; she loves her cousin so much. She was very upset but Prince True Flame kept her from taking her grievances to the Stone Clan. That would not have gone well for the Wind Clan.”

Considering what she learned at Caraway’s, no, it would not have gone well. “Can these Harbingers be trusted?”

“They are old and clever, with ancient grudges. They are like a blind swordsman filled with rage; they will attack anything that moves. It could make them easy to manipulate. The Harbingers might have sided with Tinker domi. They abhor spell-working. Cana Lily, though, abhors the Wind Clan. He is a warlord from the Clan War. He would have gladly given Tinker the fight she sought and the Harbingers would have backed Cana Lily.”

“Oh joy.”

“What’s more, since the Skin Clan attempted to prolong the Clan War, it is possible that Cana Lily has always been one of their pawns.”

Law admired her fellow Pittsburghers. Hell or high water, they were determined to live their normal life. Oktoberfest was an ancient Earth festival imported from Europe ages before the first Startup by immigrant steelworkers. Law believed that the original festival had been held in October (hence the name) but it had been combined with the elf harvest celebration that started a week or so before the fall equinox. (Elves did not have holidays but holy weeks.) Since it featured drinking large quantities of beer, the humans aimed for Friday and Saturday instead of a set day, thus the date was fluid.

The festival was normally held at the fairground that doubled as the gossamer airfield. The war made that impossible, so the powers that be had moved it to the converted railroad station of Station Square. It was a trade-off between access to the light-rail and the constant danger that the riverfront presented. All week a brave and cautious work crew had erected fences along the shoreline.

Law had three deliveries to make, all last-minute calls. Ellen inquired about the possibility of chestnuts, Tiffani begged for pesantiki, and Trixie demanded apples. (Knowing Trixie, her demand was to cover her embarrassment for having to ask for help.) Without Bare Snow, Law would have never been able to gather everything on top of her enclave orders. She arrived too late to drive into Station Square proper; the long driveway was closed. She parked across the street in the old Hooters parking lot.

Law unloaded her Dodge into her two Radio Flyer cargo wagons. Brisbane tried to climb in with the McIntosh apples.

“No way. You won’t eat just one. You get in the fish.” Law used a slightly wormy-looking apple to lure him into the other wagon. He climbed in, complaining loudly. The porcupine was the size of a kindergartener and at times just as loud.

She started off with the apples and nuts, confident that Bare Snow would follow with Brisbane and the fish. They crossed the street that led to Smithfield Bridge.

The elf part of the festival had started several days earlier with setting up a temporary home for the religious shrines that guarded over the grounds. A wooden platform and roof had been handcrafted without any nails. Pennants flew overhead, mostly Wind Clan blue and Fire Clan red but with a sprinkling of Pittsburgh black and gold as a dodge around displaying Stone Clan color. The stiff plastic rustled in the wind like dozens of little people clapping.

An odd low roaring sound came from across the river. Law paused at the corner to look across the Smithfield Bridge. An elf with a bullroarer was leading a parade across the bridge. The instrument roared as he spun it in a wide circle.

“We’re just in time,” Law said. “Here comes the shrine.”

“Gouni is coming!” Bare Snow clapped her hands and gave a little bounce of excitement. The autumn equinox was dedicated to the Goddess of Life and Harvest. Over the last week, it had become apparent that Gouni was the elf version of Santa Claus—if Santa Claus was a cheap bastard that only gave out blessings and roasted keva beans. Seriously, Law could not see the appeal but she knew that Bare Snow desperately wanted to be blessed by the priestess.

“They take forever to get the shrine into place,” Law said. “If we hurry, we can be done to receive the blessing.”

The old station building had been converted into a pub favored by the human train personnel. Law had spent many afternoons at the pub with her grandfather and other local retired railroad employees. It was a grand place with tall marble columns, an arched ceiling, rich detailed woodwork and beautiful stained-glass windows. It served killer bruschetta and Shirley Temple cocktails. It almost made her like being force-fed information on trains. Across the street from the station was the old Freight House that now housed several Earth chain stores, all closed due to Tinker destroying the orbital gate. It was no wonder that the pub leapt at the chance to host Oktoberfest.

The two-lane drive past the Freight House was closed to traffic. Booths lined it on either side. Bare Snow pointed in excitement at them. Jewelry. Handcrafted toys. Hot food. Games of chance. Everything locally grown and crafted.

The tenth booth in was Usagi’s household. They were doing a simple ring-toss game with very cute, handmade, stuffed rabbits as prizes. All the half-elf kids were there, wearing rabbit hats that covered their pointed ears.

“Law!” The oldest, Moon Rabbit, bounded up to Law. The girl was going through a neon pink phase. She had on a bright pink rabbit onesie in lieu of a rabbit hat. “Law! Law!” She bounced up and down, making her ears and big cottontail flop. “Where’s big sister?”

Law wasn’t sure how anyone could miss the sexiest thing on two legs pulling a porcupine in a large red wagon. She could hear Brisbane complaining that he’d finished his apple. She glanced behind her and spotted the flash of red. “Right there.”

The children launched themselves at Bare Snow and Brisbane with squeals of excitement that could shatter glass.

“You’re here alone?” Law asked as Usagi hugged her.

“Clover is home with the two babies. Babs had a baby to deliver in the South Hills. Hazel is at work. The EIA worked some deal to get all the bakeries in town flour from the Westernlands. They’re paying her in food that we desperately need. Widget got hauled off by a boy from the bakery; something about life and death and needing her computer skills.”

It left Usagi outnumbered five to one.

“Do you need help?” Law felt she needed to ask even though babysitting wasn’t her strong suit.

Usagi waved off the offer. “Hazel will take them home after she gets off work. I told them they could stay until dusk. They’ve been sewing rabbits for a week, it’s the least I can do.”

“They made these?” Law picked up one of the stuffed toys.

“The older kids did.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “The bunnies that the little ones made were really ugly so we’re going to give them to any annoying drunks that win.”

They had a solid barrier to prevent cheating, painted with happy bunnies to disguise the fact that it was a deterrent. A tape measure and graph paper showed that Usagi had left nothing to chance. She had everything carefully mapped out to maximize her profits.

“What do you expect to clear?” Law said.

Usagi looked slightly worried. “We need this to pay for heat this winter. We were screwed out of a lot of money when we were cut off from Earth. July is our biggest jam production run and we collect on those deliveries in August at Shutdown.” Which never happened.

Usagi picked up one of the bunnies. “Each bunny is a sock with some stuffing and two beads for eyes. The socks were free; the cuffs were frayed. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with six hundred pairs of socks but free is free. We’re charging a quarter a game with a win ratio of four to one. I’m hoping to make close to a thousand dollars.”

It was a drawback of living in a commune large enough to take Usagi’s sprawling household of five women and their seven children. All the women pitched in money and time but it was Usagi that figured out how to make it all work. It would scare Law silly to have so many people dependent on her.

Law was good at rescuing damsels in distress. “If you want, we can rig up some kind of wood burner. They’re not that hard to make. I can get you a cord of firewood before it starts to snow. It would be good to have, anyhow, in case the power goes off.”

Usagi hugged her hard. “Thank you, Law. You’re a lifesaver.”

Law turned around to discover Bare Snow was passing out their fish. “What are you doing?”

“Little sister Moon Rabbit wanted a pesantiki but she didn’t have any money to play the game,” Bare Snow stated calmly. “And it would not be fair just to give one to her and not to the others. We have many. A few will not be missed.”

The children had found clear plastic drinking cups and stood huddled around the wagon.

Law could not say no. Bare Snow had spent hours catching the fish; she had the right to give some away. Bare Snow liked playing big sister; it gave her the family that she’d always wanted. Law suspected too that it wasn’t frivolous pretending. Moon Rabbit looked six years old when she was in her teens. If the children continued to age slowly, they’d need Bare Snow in a few decades.

The children “ooohed” and “ahhhed” over the little gleaming gold fish with large flowing fins.

“I’m sorry,” Law murmured to Usagi. She’d learned long ago that it was a bad thing to give pets to children. Parents hated you for it.

“It’s okay. I have a big aquarium somewhere in our basement. A biology student was throwing it out instead of taking it back to Earth. Free is free.”

Law felt a little less guilty.

Bare Snow’s long blue-black hair was up in Sailor Moon twin ponytails when they left Usagi’s booth. They found Tiffani still struggling to hang the decorations on her booth.

“What a stupid time to break my arm,” Tiffani complained.

“There’s a good time?” Law took the banner and tacked it firmly into place.

“Don’t make me hit you.” Tiffani raised a thick cast on her right arm. She’d painted it with roses and thorns to match the sleeve tattoo that it covered. “It will hurt both of us more than we want.”

“Are you going to need help to run your booth?” Law asked.

“Nah, once the decorations are up, it’s just collect the money, pass out nets, and wrap up winnings in plastic bags. I could do it in my sleep. Thanks for getting me fish. I would have been shit out of luck and fifty bucks.”

Tiffani smelled strongly of marijuana.

“You sure?” Law asked.

“What? Oh!” She sniffed herself. “That! I only wish I was high at the moment. The hospital wouldn’t give me anything for the pain. It’s either moonshine or weed. Marijuana isn’t any worse than Nyquil in terms of stuff like driving or cooking. Moonshine? Oh, that stuff kicks me on my ass.”

“Nothing for pain?”

“They’re saving it for when the fighting gets serious. I’m like ‘Serious? What are you calling all the bodies piled up on the sidewalks?’ And they’re like ‘That’s just oni dead. We don’t treat oni. We’re talking human causalities.’ What bullshit. Half of the EIA are oni. Whatever. I’m really hating this; the pain makes me a bitch on wheels. I’m going to be fun tonight with sixty zillion screaming little kids and drunk guys going ‘I’ll get you a freaking fish’ and looking like assholes because they can’t and being mad about it. After a while, I just want to stuff the fish down their throats.”

“Are you sure you don’t need help? I don’t want to be bailing you out of jail again. You would have been deported if Johnnie Be Good had pressed charges.”

“I am fine! And the pervert had that ass-kicking coming.”

Law had to agree to that.

“I don’t want to be high for this.” Tiffani leaned close to whisper. “So far both sides are leaving humans out of the fighting but I figure that’s only going to last so long. Beer, food and music in one place? Half of Pittsburgh is going to be here tonight. It makes for a damn big target.”

Law’s insides churned at the thought. According to the newspapers, the oni had kidnapped, tortured, raped, and eaten an unknown number of elf children. The Skin Clan troops fought on the sly, setting traps and using people as bait. She hated the idea of these people targeting the festival for no other reason than to pit the humans against the elves.

“I’ve got my escape route planned. I didn’t park over there.” Tiffani pointed toward the Hooters lot that served as main parking for the festival. Station Square’s five-storied garage was slated to be a makeshift beer hall for all the microbreweries. “The way I figure it, everyone’s going to either be running to their cars, or to the incline or to the light-rail and things will be all jammed up.” She shifted to point at the low chain-link fence that ran alongside Station Square. On the other side was the Elfhome main line. A second temporary fence had been erected beyond the tracks to protect people from jumpfish. “The train tracks are right there, close enough to touch. I parked downriver at the freight yard and walked up to here. If the oni attack, all I need to do is grab my cashbox and go. Sorry, fish.” She pretended to wave goodbye to the pesantiki. “You’re dead meat.”

Tiffani was right about the escape routes that the masses would take. Usagi would need to take the incline; it was the only direct way to get up to her place at the top of Mount Washington. There was a meandering back road on the other side of the ridge, but Usagi hadn’t brought a car at the festival.

Law shifted uncomfortably as the possible targets shifted closer to her heart. She wanted to rage out into the city and make sure that no harm came to her close friends. “You’ve got my number. If anyone causes any problems or acts weird or you think that something fishy might be in the works, call me.”

Ellen’s tiny-house lunch counter was sitting on prime real estate across the street from the parking garage. Her trailer had been tucked beside the porte-cochere of the old Sheraton Hotel. She’d set up picnic tables under the porch roof and the scent of a wood grill was floating up from the back.

“Oh, please tell me that you found chestnuts!” Ellen said in greeting.

“Of course I did. Fifty pounds.” Law lifted the five-gallon buckets out of the wagon. Elfhome and American chestnut trees had hybridized to create a larger, sweeter nut that ripened earlier. “I want my buckets back but I can wait until Monday.”

“Here, taste this.” Ellen held out a bratwurst in a bun.

It was an explosion of taste in Law’s mouth. “That’s good. Is that a honey mustard sauce? That’s really good. What kind of bread is that?”

“Bean flour,” Ellen cried. “I could not track down any wheat so I ground some dried navy beans. I’m allergic to wheat so I use it for myself all the time.”

“It’s good. Just different.”

“I know it’s good; I wouldn’t sell it if it wasn’t good. It’s just that people don’t like different; that’s why I wanted the chestnuts. I need to sell something to make up the cost of the booth.”

“People will buy it,” Law stated. “Pittsburghers will eat anything that doesn’t bite them back. The rest will be too drunk to notice.”

Ellen laughed. “I hope you’re right. I’m short on money; all I have are ones and fives for the cash box. Can I pay you when you pick up your buckets?”

Ellen normally prided herself on paying up front. It had been a hard summer on everyone with the military lockdowns, but hardest on people like her. Between being cut off from their regular providers and their customers hoarding cash for the winter, small business owners were struggling.

“Sure, no problem,” Law said

“How much do I owe you?” Ellen asked.

“Twenty bucks.”

Ellen smacked her.

“Ow! What’s that for?” Law cried.

“I am not a charity case. You’ve got two mouths to feed.”

“We eat very well.” Bare Snow had odd ideas as to what a proper diet was. Every meal had to have like thirty ingredients in it. Meat. Grains. Vegetables. Fruits. Spices. All mixed together into little froufrou dishes. “This morning, we had baked apples stuffed with bacon, onions and goat cheese.”

“Oh, that sounds good. Get me the recipe.”

The recipe seemed to be whatever strayed into Bare Snow’s hand, but it was probably more premeditated than that.

“We’re making money hand over fist off the enclaves,” Law said. “We might be the only people in Pittsburgh currently doing well. I don’t need to make a profit off my friends. Besides, if I charge you less, you can charge your customers less, and people will have more fun at the festival. Pittsburgh needs that.”

Ellen hugged her hard. “You are a good person, Law. Thank you. These last few weeks have been an utter roller coaster ride. Everyone has been hunkered down in the South Hills, waiting to see if the worst is over yet. I’ve got all these bratwurst, no customers, and no way to freeze the bloody things. I would have been sunk if the Changs hadn’t pulled out of the festival.”

“They pulled out? Why?”

“I don’t know. Vinnie called saying that one of the Chang boys had roughed him up for the money they put down last year to hold their normal slot.”

The Changs traditionally sold meat-on-a-stick at fairs. They put their restaurant-honed skills to use by marinating skewers of chicken, saurus and wild boar in teriyaki sauce and cooking them on massive wood-fired grills. Because they could pump out large amounts of great-tasting food, they usually had the best location at any festival. It explained Ellen’s prime real estate.

What Ellen obviously didn’t know was that the Changs were half-oni. Law had only put all the clues together a few days before Tommy Chang threw in with the elves. She nearly had whiplash as her long history with the Chang family underwent a drastic rewrite.

What happened that made the Changs pull out of the festival? Had this happened after Trixie called demanding apples to candy? Or was this before, and thus the whole reason Trixie was suddenly scrambling to put together a booth at Oktoberfest?

The big eight-foot-long zalituus horns had reached the end of the bridge and started to blow, signaling that the shrine was nearing the end of its journey. Bare Snow started to bounce in place.

“I’ve got to go!” Law said. “See you Monday!”

The elves that were working booths drifted toward the front entrance, summoned by the horns. Most of the humans were like Law; if they had the time, they would go see the pageantry that the elves were creating. It wasn’t their religion so they could easily miss it if they were too busy. A handful of humans countered with human traditions, plastering pilgrim hats and turkeys everywhere despite the fact it was only September.

Law pointed at the back of Ellen’s tiny house. “Bare Snow, you can leave that wagon here and go see the shrine installed.”

Bare Snow pointed away from the entrance. “No, I want to get funnel cake!”

“Funnel cake?” Law glanced up the street. Yes, three booths up, a bunch of high school students were drizzling batter into hot oil to make the tangled-ribbon cakes. Judging by the “Team Big Sky” banners and their remarks, the kids were younger siblings of the team members who were out looking for Oilcan. The team captain, John Montana, wisely decided that the search was too dangerous for the teenage kids.

“Moon Rabbit says funnel cake is heavenly and I should get lots,” Bare Snow said.

And share it when they passed Usagi’s again. In certain regards, Moon Rabbit was very much her mother without any brakes.

Law doubted that this funnel cake would measure up to previous years’. Just about anything fried and covered with sugar, however, would be heavenly to a child. “Go on. I’ll deliver the apples.”

Hopefully Trixie was somewhere ahead.

When Law was nine years old, her parents had declared that she was too wild and unmanageable for them to handle. They sent her bouncing between various family members as they focused on throwing hissy fits of mutual selfishness that ended with their divorce. Years eleven and twelve she spent as an unwilling slave to her grandfather, up to her elbows in grease, rebuilding the Dodge and listening to his war stories of setting up the railroad on Elfhome. She ended her servitude by explaining in detail her budding attraction to girls.

She celebrated her freedom by roaming the city all summer, looking for someone to put words into deeds.

She found Trixie, hiding from the oni, not that Law knew that at the time. Trixie had been half-starved, physically scarred, shockingly knowledgeable about all things sexual, and desperately in need of saving. The girl tripped every trigger that Law didn’t know that she had. Law fell hard but she was never sure where she stood in Trixie’s heart. All the secrets that Trixie refused to tell Law seemed like proof that the girl didn’t care about her.

It was embarrassing to realize that Trixie had been keeping Law safe from her own stupidity. Law hadn’t been able to imagine anyone that she couldn’t level with her fists or trusty “Lady Luck” baseball bat. The oni could have easily killed Law or worse. Law never even imagined worse; she had been too naïve.

Life since June had been an education on worse.

At the very end of the street, right before it opened up to the amphitheater space, Law found the Chang girls. Trixie and three of her younger female cousins were nervously pacing behind a makeshift counter. Hand-painted signs read CANDY APPLES $2.

“Where the hell have you been?” Trixie cried in greeting. She rocked a girly tomboy look with her black hair cut pixie-short, red tank top that flaunted her arm muscles, and tight faded blue jeans. She wasn’t starving to death like when they first met, but her jeans made it obvious that she was still painfully skinny. “We couldn’t heat the candy until we had the apples.” She used her cigarette to light a propane burner. “After we coat the apples, we need to let them cool. We really needed an hour prep time and the shrine is already here.”

Law ignored the bitchiness; Trixie was between a rock and a hard place. “I found a small McIntosh orchard that everyone missed.” With an uncertain winter looming in front of them, everyone in Pittsburgh was gleaning abandoned farms for fruit. Law was needing to range farther and farther out. “I know this won’t last you the whole weekend, but it should get you through today and tomorrow. I’ll hit the orchard again and get you more.”

Trixie flicked her cigarette onto the asphalt and ground it out with her red ballerina flats. “Tell me where it is and I’ll send someone out to it.”

“It’s near the Rim…”

“They’ll have guns.” She picked up one of the apples. “If it was rice, it’d be no problem, but you try to explain the difference between McIntosh and Red Delicious to these idiots, you get a blank look.”

Trixie meant her male cousins. Apparently she’d tried sending them out to get apples and hit a brick wall of ignorance. Trixie handed the apple to one of the girls that had been unloading the apples into large plastic bins. “Wash them and put them on sticks.”

Said male cousins were nowhere to be seen. Whatever went wrong and made the Chang family pull out of the festival, Trixie had set herself up as the only target.

“Are you okay?” Law whispered.

“We’re fine.”

“Are you sure? I could help you, if you just tell me…”

“Oh, stop!” Trixie kissed Law to silence her. She tasted of cigarettes and beer. With one kiss, they were back to thirteen, when Trixie had been Law’s first everything. First crush. First kiss. First sexual fumbling on warm summer nights. First lost love. When Law wouldn’t stop asking questions, Trixie enacted a silent treatment that made rocks seem talkative. They didn’t break up so much as Law fled the silence.

If Law kept asking now, she risked the fragile friendship they’d built since then.

Law took a deep breath and plunged ahead. Silence was a small price if it kept Trixie from being killed. “Don’t brush me off; I’m not thirteen anymore. I understand the danger now. I’m not going to go blindly charging into trouble. I can’t help you, though, if you don’t tell me the truth.”

Trixie snorted in disbelief but didn’t push her away. “There’s nothing you can do. Tommy took Spot and went after Jewel Tear. He told the rest of us to lay low, but we’re out of money and food. This is our one chance to get money before everything blows up in our face.”

“Tommy knows where the oni took Jewel Tear?”

“No!” Trixie cried in frustration. She glanced at the girls washing the apples and whispered. “He’s shooting blind. The timing was really wonky, so he thinks that the oni still have moles working the railroad. The inbound trains are all loaded down with royal marines. The outbound, though, are empty except for the crews. It’s three hundred miles to the East Coast. The oni could stop the train anywhere between here and there and no one would know.”

Someone would know.

Tommy was right. The oni would need to have moles still in place to keep anyone from finding out.

At one time, Pittsburgh had been a mishmash of rail lines. There had been the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Wabash, the Pennsylvania, the Erie Lackawanna, and probably a half-dozen others that Law had forgotten. At the time of the first Startup, the city had been a maze of active and rusty, abandoned tracks. While the humans on Earth focused on creating a massive quarantine zone around the metropolitan area, the people of Pittsburgh worked at consolidating the tracks into one railroad system that stretched out to the East Coast.

The hardest part of building a railroad wasn’t laying track, it was creating a solid level track bed with a subgrade layer blanketed by ballast. Through the heart of seven mountains and across countless streams and rivers, the engineers were forced to lay only one track. Every place they could, however, they built sidings where a slower train could sit and allow a faster train traveling the opposite direction to pass.

Most people in Pittsburgh believed that there was only one train in motion at any given time: inbound or outbound. There were, however, always multiple trains incoming and outgoing. A fast-moving set of passenger cars might pass as many as five slower freight trains during its eight-hour trip. It was a little-known fact because the only humans ever to ride on the trains were the crews.

Communication was key when juggling freight trains carrying up to fifteen thousand tons of ore. The individual cars were carefully tracked from being loaded on the East Coast until they were handed off to Earth during Shutdown.

The tracking was done on the upper floors of the Union Station on Liberty Avenue. The building was a beautiful terra-cotta brick with turn-of-the-century charm. Downstairs was complete with a stunning rotunda built to allow horse carriages to unload out of the rain and snow. Ironically with Pittsburgh on Elfhome, the shelter had returned to its original purpose. Big cargo wagons pulled by large draft horses sat under the rotunda. Royal marines were loading tents and personal gear onto the wagons. The Fire Clan soldiers were fresh off the latest passenger train; they shouted in excitement when they spotted Law.

“It’s a human! Look! A human!”

The marines crowded around Law.

“Maybe she’s a human, maybe she’s not,” one tall male said. “Oni can disguise themselves so they look like humans. We should test her.”

None of the marines seemed to notice Bare Snow skirting the edge of the rotunda. Law tracked her by the flash of blue in amongst the sea of red.

“Okay. Test me.” Law put out her arm. She’d been tested earlier in the summer. The attack on the viceroy made the elves aware of the oni presence. As a food supplier to the enclaves, Law went to the top of the list of “humans we want to be sure are not oni.” The humans running the train and those employed by the EIA were close seconds. All the moles should have been ferreted out; unless the moles looked human.

Several of the marines pulled out a spell inked onto a paper. There was a brief argument as to which paper would be used. For a while, it seemed like all of the spells might be applied. It was finally settled by a furious game of rock-paper-scissors. (Although, judging by the shouts, in the elf game “scissors” had been replaced by “flame.”)

The activated spell caused a ripple that felt like static electricity to crawl over Law, spreading out from her forearm to shoulder to scalp and then down her back. Every hair on her body stood on end. Nothing else happened.

There was visible disappointment on the marines’ faces when Law’s appearance didn’t change.

“Maybe it didn’t work.” The marine that lost the rock-paper-flame game held out his unused spell. “Maybe we should try again.”

“No!” the rest cried out in a chorus.

An officer shouted from the front of the wagon. “Stop talking with the native and get that wagon loaded, you lazy slackers!”

Native? It was the first time Law had been called that. She had been born on Elfhome, although if asked she would have said she was born in Pittsburgh.

The marines loaded the last of the tents onto the wagon. The driver flicked the reins to start the big horses. They trotted out of the rotunda with the clatter of metal horseshoes on stone paving.

“Move out!” the officer shouted.

The marine still holding the unused spell paper tried to stuff it away. The paper refused to cooperate. He finally thrust it at Law. “Here! For being patient.”

Free is free. Law bowed. “Thank you.”

The control room was a large, mind-boggling place. The longest wall was covered entirely by giant monitors showing the crazy spiderweb of tracks in Pittsburgh. Much of the tangle was the large freight yard at the foot of West End Bridge. From there were the dozens of dispersal lines that only led to Earth during Shutdown. A single thread leapt out across the room to a small web on the East Coast. Gleaming LED lights indicated train locations. Flickering indicated trains in motion. A vast amount of the network was dark, dormant, waiting on a miracle that would reconnect Pittsburgh to Earth.

A dozen workstations were positioned so they could see the wall in a single glance. Each had yet more screens, more buttons than God, and several computer keyboards. Law had been told countless stories about the room and how the controls had been greatly simplified for the elves. Law had assumed that she would know how to find what she was looking for.

“Yeah, yeah, just go and find out where all the trains are and where they’ve been,” she whispered as she wandered through the room, eyeing the hundreds of buttons and switches. Where was everyone? According to her grandfather, it was vital that the tracks were continuously monitored to avoid any collisions.

The workstations were complete mysteries. She decided to ignore them and studied the wall instead. There were four trains showing on the board. One was the passenger train that had delivered the royal marines. It should be on its way to the freight yard in order to have its toilets emptied and the diesel engine refueled. It was just sitting at Union Station, idling. Law had heard that the railroad had been virtually stripped of human employees. It had left the elves too shorthanded to keep the system running smoothly.

Another train sat in the first siding beyond the Rim. Law couldn’t see what it was waiting on. If the mystery train was outbound, then there was nothing in its way for a hundred miles. If it was inbound, it would take precedence over the empty passenger train.

It seemed unlikely that the oni used the mystery train to transport Jewel Tear; it was too close to Pittsburgh. The city roads ended at the edge of the siding. The oni could have driven to that point within an hour. A train sitting for days would have drawn more attention than one car, even out that far.

Law studied the other two trains on the board. One was on the East Coast, just pulling out of the distant station. The other was inbound but hours away. Judging by its speed, the incoming train was another passenger train loaded with marines. They had been arriving nonstop for most of the week, hundreds at a time. If either train had been used to transport Jewel Tear, the elf was no longer on it.

How was she going to find where the oni stopped the supposedly empty outbound train?

A slight noise made her turn. A male elf in Wind Clan blue walked into the room from a door she hadn’t noticed.

“Who are you?” He came steamrolling toward her. “What are you doing here? This is a restricted area.”

Law backpedaled to keep out of reach of him. “I’m Joe Casey’s granddaughter. He’s a safety inspector…”

“Casey is dead.” He tried to catch hold of her arm.

Law dodged around one of the workstations. She pointed at the lone gleaming light on the wall. “I just wanted to know: what’s that train there?”

He didn’t even glance at the wall. “That is none of your business. You are not allowed in here. You must leave immediately.”

Law decided to show some of her cards in a bid to get him on her side. “I think the oni have control of that train.”

That made him pause. “Who told you that?”

She didn’t want to name Trixie since the girl hadn’t been identified as a half-oni, nor Tommy Chang, since it might poison the elves against anything she said. “What is that train? Is it supposed to be there?”

His body language changed from “I want you to leave” to “I don’t want you to escape.” He stalked forward, eyes narrowing. “Who knows about…”

Law realized she’d made a mistake. She’d backed into a corner in her attempt to keep from being thrown out before she had her say. Okay, this is about to get ugly.

He jerked to a halt as a flash of blue in Law’s side vision announced Bare Snow’s presence. His eyes widened as he recognized Bare Snow’s blue-black hair and storm-gray eyes. He backed up, fear spreading across his face.

He knew that Bare Snow was an assassin when none of the elves at the enclaves did.

The only people that knew of Bare Snow’s training were the ones that had tricked her into coming to Pittsburgh and tried to frame her for the attack on Windwolf.

He was Skin Clan.

Law punched him as hard as she could in a full roundhouse.

He went down and came back up with knives.

“Whoa!” Law jumped back. She hit the wall and tried to keep backing up.

He knew which one of them was more dangerous. He backpedaled, slashing at Bare Snow. His knives were human-made with blades of plain steel. Bare Snow parried his attacks. Made of magically sharped ironwood, her knives sliced through his. The steel blades went flying to land with a faint metallic ring.

With a hard lunge, Bare Snow nailed him to the wall with a knife through his right collarbone. The male cried out in pain. He started to curl around the blade but froze as Bare Snow pressed the tip of her other knife to his throat.

“Don’t kill him!” Law shouted.

“Why? He’s one of the Skin Clan’s mindless drones.”

“We need to ask him questions.”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Bare Snow growled. “He does their busy work without even knowing their true plans, happy with his ignorance. If he does know anything useful, he’ll die before he’ll tell us.”

“We could at least try asking him.” Law needed to explain “good cop/bad cop” to Bare Snow at some point.

Bare Snow snorted in contempt. “For thousands of years, they’ve believed the lies that their master told them. That they are superior to their fellow slaves. That their fellow slaves are nothing more than disobedient furniture. That our people have no more right than a chair to say what happens to their bodies.”

The male sneered at Bare Snow. “You worship at the altar of the gods and yet you refuse the same loyalty to your creator.”

“They’re thieves!” Bare Snow cried. “They steal everything! They stole everything that the gods gave to us. Like petty little children, they sifted through everything they’d stolen, tossed what they didn’t want into a dung heap, and then acted like everything else was their creation.”

“Bare! Bare!” Law cried as the tip of the blade had drawn blood. “One question!” Law pointed at the track display. “You can save yourself if you just tell us what you know about that train. Why is it just sitting there?”

“Shut up, monkey!” the male growled. “You gibber away pretending to speak our language when all you’re doing is aping the sounds. Nothing has been done to improve your people since you climbed down out of the trees. You still cling to the stupid idea of paradise after you’re dead because you live short, disease-ridden lives. Your people are only good as a constant reminder of how much our lords have done for us. That they will do again. We will be gods and you will stay ugly little…”

“My Law is not ugly!” Bare Snow shoved the blade home.

“Bare!” Law cried. “No!”

It was too late; the male was dead.

“Oh jeez, Bare! We didn’t find out anything.”

“He did not want to tell us about the train.” Bare Snow jerked out her knife to let his dead body slide down the wall. It left a smear of blood. “There are others of his ilk here. If the train were not important, he would have delayed us by answering all our questions in detail.”

Law glanced at the wall. What was so important about the train that he was willing to die for it?

The Elfhome railroad followed the Monongahela, bending and twisting with the river, the track bed built up from the level flood plains. At Charleroi, it used a newly built bridge to cross over the river. Beyond that point, the right of way wound its way in a mostly eastward direction, cutting through empty towns and abandoned farmland. The Rim had taken out the little town of Wyano leaving behind a large level area to build a siding.

Law took old Route 70 to Wyano. At the exit ramp, she turned off her motor. The back roads were quiet places and the oni would hear her Dodge coming. She coasted down the long hill into Wyano. The Rim sliced across through the heart of the small town, a thin band of destruction backed by towering mature ironwood trees. The forest was overtaking the town with saplings overshadowing the Earth maples and black cherries.

Just shy of the Rim, Law pulled into a weed-choked driveway.

“We’ll walk the rest of the way. It will be quieter.” Law climbed out. Brisbane scrambled down from the cab. “You stay with the Dodge, Brizzy.”

Brisbane complained loudly.

“You’re too loud and you walk too slow.” She pulled out a sack of wormy apples from the back of the truck. “I’ll make sure you won’t starve. You wait here.”

He grunted in disgust but accepted the offering of apples poured into a small pile beside the Dodge. She tried to estimate what he might eat in an hour since she didn’t want him wandering off; they might have to leave quickly.

She’d bought an illegal fully automatic Glock pistol in July. She never wanted to be on the losing end of a gunfight again. She belted on her holster and then checked the Glock’s magazine. She made sure she had her Bowie knife, a fanny pack of zip-ties, and her stungun/flashlight combo.

Bare Snow stripped down to her lovely alabaster skin. In the leafy shadows, her white-ink tattoos were imperceptible. She stretched in all manner of distracting ways. It did all sorts of things to Law’s heart to watch her. It had only been three months, but she couldn’t imagine life without Bare Snow.

“We need to be careful.” Law knew that it didn’t need to be said; Bare Snow had “careful” beaten into her by her mother. Law had been the one who had gotten shot in their last big fight. Still it felt like asking for a blessing; things would be good because they spoke the words aloud.

“They won’t know what hit them!” Bare Snow cried in English. Law wasn’t sure where she learned the phrase until Bare Snow added, “In the name of the moon, I will punish them.” She struck a Sailor Moon pose.

Walking with Bare Snow was like walking alone. Law knew that she was nearby but could neither see nor hear the female. Another person, she would have suspected of running ahead or falling behind, but she knew that Bare Snow worried for Law’s safety and kept close.

They crossed the cracked pavement of the abandoned street. Wyano had been a scattering of two-story wooden farmhouses on large lots. The paint on the homes had peeled off long ago and the exposed wood turned to gray. The houses hunched like ghosts in yards given over to ironwood saplings. Law picked her way carefully through the dead leaves, trying not to make noise and failing. Hidden sticks snapped and popped under Law’s feet. Someplace nearby, Bare Snow walked silently. Law caught sight of her shadow once or twice and wished that she hadn’t. It would be better if Bare Snow’s invisibility were flawless.

The saplings became mature trees as they crossed the Rim. Another fifty feet of virgin forest and they reached the main line railroad tracks. Ironwoods overshadowed the track bed, keeping the berm free of underbrush. The twin shining rails came from the west in a straight shot. To the east, they disappeared around a bend as the track bed curved to avoid a steep hillside. Law’s footsteps crunched loudly on the crushed rock ballast. She shifted over to the creosote-soaked wooden ties.

They’d walked for only half a mile before Law could pick out voices in the distance. She moved back into the shadows of the forest. The ironwood trees had been trimmed back to make room for the siding. The switch was set to let the main line trains pass. Because of the thick row of trees between the two sets of tracks, the passing trains couldn’t see the mystery train sitting in the siding.

It was a twelve-car passenger train. Its wedge-nosed diesel engine purred in a rough idle, facing west toward Pittsburgh. Royal marines moved purposely in and out of the forest beside the siding. It looked as if all eighty-four seats of the passenger cars were full, putting the number of marines on board at a thousand. The last car was a general-purpose flatcar. It was stacked with the tents like the ones she’d seen the marines loading onto the horse-drawn wagons at Union Station.

Law crouched in the shadows, feeling relieved and disappointed. The mystery train was just another troop carrier bringing in more royal marines. The other two inbound trains were probably more of the same. Law couldn’t tell why this one had stopped or what the marines were doing. Something felt very wrong but she couldn’t put a finger on it.

She cautiously worked her way toward the trees where the marines were coming and going. Any time she’d dealt with the Fire Clan troops, they’d always been curious and nonthreatening, but that was in Pittsburgh, where they expected to find humans. They might not be so friendly if she popped up unannounced in the woods.

The marines had beaten a path through the bracken. Their footprints were deep, as if they had carried something heavy into the forest. She’d gone several hundred feet down the path before she found the naked body.

Law stumbled to a halt, covering her mouth to keep in a shout of dismay. It was a young male elf. His hair was Fire Clan red. His skin was a strange cherry color. Law tore her gaze from the body and scanned the area. Ahead of her lay hundreds of bodies, all naked, all cherry red. What in hell happened to them? Why were the marines dumping them here? Elves had a thing about cremation; they thought it freed the soul from the body. This was an abomination to them.

She stumbled deeper into the forest, trying to understand what she was seeing. She wasn’t even sure what killed the elves. They appeared to be all in the same stage of rigor mortis, which meant they all died about three hours earlier.

An odd shift of shadows and the scent of bruised apples told her that Bare Snow was beside her.

“Kyanos poisoning,” Bare Snow whispered. “I wonder how the oni poisoned them. It could not have been by something they drank or ate or they would not all have died at the same time. I know of no magic that could do this.”

Traps were tricky things. A crayfish trap was only effective for a short time; given enough time, even brainless crayfish figured out a way to escape. How could you kill a thousand people?

“I don’t know about this kyanos poison,” Law said. “If it can be made into a gas, it would be a way you could kill this many people at once. The train goes through several tunnels. That would restrict the airflow. If they released a gas just as the train entered a tunnel, then it would remain trapped in the passenger cars. It would be like a mobile gas chamber. But why kill them? Who are they?”

“These are laedin-caste Fire Clan. These must be the real royal marines. What we saw were disguised oni in stolen uniforms.”

“Are you sure?”

“How those others move is wrong. There is no cohesion. Their stride is too wild.”

Law thought of the troops she’d seen in town. Despite their fearless curiosity, the marines still moved like soldiers. They set guards that stood at parade rest. They unconsciously matched strides when they walked abreast. What’s more, she had only seen males at the siding. The elves did gender equality in spades; between immortality and their low birth rate, females weren’t restricted to support positions. The marines in town had been an equal mix of males and females.

“Half of Pittsburgh is going to be here,” Tiffani had said. “It makes for a damn big target. I’m going to walk up to the train tracks…they’re right there close enough to touch.”

“Shit!” Law hissed. The oni were going to attack Oktoberfest dressed as elves! It would be a massacre. Anyone that survived would testify on the victims’ grave that the killers were royal marines. Every human in Pittsburgh would take up weapons against the elves.

She had to stop that train. Somehow. She thought of the thousand armed oni dressed as marines. First she should warn someone, just in case she failed. She ducked behind a massive ironwood and took her phone out of her pocket. There was no signal. She waved her phone about, hoping to pick up something.

Who should she call? The EIA? She didn’t trust them. Pittsburgh Police? No, getting more humans involved would just play to the Skin Clan’s plan. It had to be elves. She needed to get hold of someone like Chili Pepper; he’d listen to her. The enclaves, however, didn’t have phones.

Thinking of Chili Pepper reminded her of her conversation with Alton. The Kryskills had connections with the tengu; otherwise Alton wouldn’t know where Jin Wong was or how to get hold of him. The elves trusted the tengu because they belonged to Tinker. Alton could get a message to Windwolf through the tengu.

One bar appeared in her phone’s signal indicator.

She tapped Alton’s number. “Come on! Go through!”

Alton answered his phone with, “Who’s this?”

“It’s me, Law!” she whispered.

“Lawrie? Did you find Oilcan? Where is he?”

“Shut up and listen! The oni have control of one of the passenger trains.”

“What? Say again?”

She risked talking louder. “The oni captured a passenger train! They have an inbound train.”

There was a pause and she was afraid she’d lost her signal. After a moment, Alton said, “Roger that.”

“Get a hold of Windwolf and the elves. They have to get to Station Square.”

“Say…” The line went choppy. “Lawrie? Windwolf needs to go where? Union Station?”

She peeked around the tree toward the sidling. There were no oni in sight. She spoke louder. “Oktoberfest! Station Square!”

“South Side?”

“Yes! The oni are going to attack the festival!”

“Say…”

Her phone went silent. “Shitshitshitshit.” The signal indicator was blank. She turned in a circle, trying to pick up a signal again. Nothing.

Hopefully Alton had gotten enough to do something. She swept her phone in a circle. She should call Usagi and the others and tell them to go home—

There was a loud metal clank from the direction of the siding. Law jerked around. The engine seemed louder than before. The air brakes hissed loudly as they released.

The oni were leaving!

Law took off running. Usagi and the kids! Ellen! Trixie! They would all be caught in the gunfire. If Alton didn’t understand the message—if he wasn’t connected as tightly with the tengu as she thought—if he wasn’t the man she thought he was…

The consequences were sickening.

At the edge of the forest, Bare Snow caught her. She jerked Law to a halt still deep in the shadows. “Wait! They’ll see you!”

The train was pulling away.

“We have to stop it!” Law whispered fiercely. She tried to tug free.

Bare Snow tightened her hold on Law’s wrist. “They will kill you if they see you!”

“I have to try!”

“You will fail.” Bare Snow was frustratingly calm. “I could hide from a thousand eyes, but you cannot. It would only take one oni with a gun and I’d be alone. I would not be able to kill them all and I cannot stop the train without you. We must find another way.”

“There isn’t another way!” Law wanted to shout, but locked her jaw against it. Bare Snow didn’t know anything about trains. It was impossible to leap onto a train once it was up to speed unless you were moving at the same speed. The track bed was too wide to jump from a vehicle on the service road. Law could drive the Dodge onto the tracks, but the ties would make jumping from the hood to the back of the train iffy as hell. There was also the question of who was going to be driving while Law jumped. The same reason she could get the Dodge onto the tracks also meant it could easily go back off. Bare Snow knew the mechanics of driving but still constantly stalled the Dodge.

How else could they catch the train? Law tried to recall everything her grandfather told her about the tracks east of the city. There wasn’t another siding until the split of the rails just before Station Square and that was too close to the crowd. If they derailed the train there, it could go flying into the Hooters parking lot.

There was the supply terminal. During Shutdown, barges on the Monongahela River offloaded rail supplies at Charleroi. Since there wasn’t a service road for most of the tracks eastward, the railroad had a fleet of maintenance vehicles that could travel on the rails.

“We could get one of the hi-rails.” Law turned toward the Dodge. “It’s a pickup truck that can be driven either on the highway or tracks. The railroad has some Land Cruisers that have conversion kits mounted on them. They’re also automatics with cruise control.”

“They have what?” Bare Snow released her hold on Law.

“It will stay at the same speed by itself. You don’t need to keep your foot on the gas. There should be at least one Land Cruiser at the terminal.”

Once they had the hi-rail, they could ambush the train.

“Here it comes.” Law gripped the wheel of the hi-rail.

She couldn’t actually see the engine; they’d decided to hide the Land Cruiser behind the Charleroi Water Filtration Plant. The low red-brick building stretched for several hundred feet beside the tracks. Traveling at sixty miles per hour, the train had triggered the crossing on the next block. The automatic system clanged as it lowered its gate, blocking an intersection that most likely no one had used for years.

Bare Snow was on the long flat rooftop of the water filtration plant. She had Law’s compound bow with her. Once upon a time, Law had cringed over how much money she had sunk into the top-of-the-line weapon. Now she considered it worth every penny.

The engine roared past Law’s hiding space. She braced herself, foot on the brake, counting cars as they flashed past the filtration plant’s driveway. “One. Two. Three.” They were still too far out to pick up a cell signal in the river valley. She wished there had been time to break into the terminal building proper and use the landline. She was counting on Alton to act as backup when really she had no clue if he could. Did he get hold of Jin Wong? Did the tengu spiritual leader convince Windwolf to go to Station Square? Had anyone thought to disperse the crowds? Was Usagi still there with all the children? Usagi had promised the half-elves that they could stay until dusk which was still hours away. “Nine. Ten. Eleven.” She gripped the wheel tightly. Over the whine and ringing of the steel wheels on steel track, she could make out Bare Snow’s running footsteps.

The open car flashed past. There were bodies sprawled on the tents, arrows standing out like exclamation points. One warrior stood in the very back, bringing up his rifle as if he’d just become aware of the death around him. There was a whisper of bowstring and he fell. Did he shout a warning before dying? Would there be a welcoming party when they tried scrambling onto the train?

The Land Cruiser dipped slightly as Bare Snow landed on the roof. She slid into the open passenger window. “Go!”

Law raced the hi-rail down the block, keeping just out of sight of the oni in the last passenger car. They reached the crossing just as the gate came up. She hit the conversion switch. The Land Cruiser’s AI took control of the steering wheel, found the tracks, positioned the SUV, and lowered the steel wheels into place. It only took twenty seconds but it seemed forever.

“Go! Go! They’re getting away!” Bare Snow cried.

“We’ll catch them!” Law hit the gas the moment she felt the car raise up, lifting the regular wheels off the ground. “We can go faster than them.”

They caught up to the train in two minutes. Law eased up until the Land Cruiser’s bumper was as close as she dared bring it to the train. “Get across and I’ll follow.”

A minute later, Bare Snow’s blue hair scarf appeared on the back of the train. Tied to one of the tent poles, it fluttered in the wind. Law set the cruise control. She shouldered a backpack of tools and opened her door. The track bed was a blur of motion under the Land Cruiser.

“This would be a bad time to suddenly be clumsy.” Nervousness rushed through Law as she scrambled up onto the roof of the SUV. Normally she enjoyed rushing into trouble to play knight in shining armor. This was different. This wasn’t some muscle-bound idiot who would underestimate her until she landed her first hit. This was several tons of brute mechanical force. It wouldn’t even notice her as it rolled over her body.

Think of the kids. Moon Rabbit and the others. Trixie. Usagi. Ellen. Tiffani.

Law steeled herself against the fear rushing through her. She took a deep breath. She charged down the windshield, across the hood and leapt.

There was a terrifying moment where she was sure that she wouldn’t make it. The train seemed to suddenly lurch forward, out of her reach. And then Bare Snow had her by the wrist, hauling her onto the train.

Law scrambled wildly, hissing curses in fear. Wind blasted over her, trying to shove her from the flatcar. She found her balance, splayed out on the tent like a scared starfish.

“This is fun!” Bare Snow said.

“Fun as a barrelful of monkeys,” Law grumbled.

“I’m not sure being in packed into a barrel would be fun for monkeys.”

There was a dead body beside Law; the last “marine” that Bare Snow shot. The arrow had pierced his eye, killing him instantly. His blood stained the white canvas of the tents. Law pulled the spell paper out of her pocket. She took a photo of it with her phone and then used it on the body. She wanted to be sure these were actually oni before she tried killing them all.

It was a weird thing. Nothing seemed to change, and yet he appeared completely different. His hair stayed red and the general outline of his face remained square. His skin took on a reddish hue. His nose was flatter. He had nubs of horns.

“Oni,” Bare Snow stated quietly.

It meant that Law was right about Station Square being the oni’s target.

“Come on.” Law picked her way across the bloodied tents.

The passenger cars had a windowed door at either end. They were hooked together with flexible gangway connections. It meant that once she and Bare Snow were on the roof, they could travel the whole way to the front of the train without jumping. Getting past the first window while they scaled the door was going to be tricky.

Law explained the problem to Bare Snow. “There’s a bathroom at the back of the car, so there’s a buffer between the chairs and the door. If the chairs are all faced to the front, then no one should see us. See me.”

“I’ll check.” It seemed like eternity before Bare Snow called simply, “Go.”

Law leapt on pure faith that Bare Snow had moved out of the way and that the oni wouldn’t see her. It was a fairly easy leap but the landing was a narrow sill. She gripped tightly to the gangway material. She ducked down when she landed. She rose slightly to peek through the window.

The seats faced forward. Most of the oni sat, seemingly bored after the long train ride from wherever they killed the marines. The few stood watching the passing landscape intently, as if waiting to see familiar landmarks. None were looking in her direction.

She stood up and caught hold of the upper sill of the gangway connection. She scrambled up to the roof as quickly as she could.

The train stretched out in front of her like a quarter-mile-long silvery snake.

She and Bare Snow had been moving at top speed since chasing after the train. The high span of the Elizabeth Bridge, though, was already in sight. It leapt from the ridges that lined both sides of the Monongahela River. Miles were disappearing faster than Law wanted. She wanted to run to the head of the snake and chop it off, but that courted disaster. Unlike freight trains, the passenger car roofs were rounded and smooth. No one was supposed to actually walk across the top. The wind buffeted her, trying to shove her off. If she fell, it would be like being hit by a car moving at high speeds. There would be no getting up.

She started forward, keeping an eye out for low overpasses.

It was the hardest quarter-mile Law ever walked. There was only a narrow invisible path down the exact center of the cars where the roof was flat enough not to start her sliding toward the edge. The train lurched and swayed unpredictably. Every eighty feet, she needed to scramble across the gangway connection. Three times she needed to duck down as they passed under roads.

They were rounding the corner to Duquesne when she finally reached the engine. Across the wide Monongahela River valley was Turtle Creek with the black tower of the spaceship standing on end, covered with the odd runes of dragon magic.

“I’m here.” Bare Snow kept Law from bumping into her. “There’s no guard on the door.”

The gangway connection hadn’t been extended between the engine and the first passenger car. When the oni killed the marines, it would have been a way to keep the engineer safe from any survivors long enough for him to stop and pick up oni warriors.

“I tried to open it, I could not,” Bare Snow said.

What had the Skin Clan done to the door?

Law’s grandfather ranted often about the lack of security on the Elfhome railroad. The reasoning was that if the humans returned to Earth without warning—like they almost did when the orbital gate failed—the elves didn’t want the humans taking all the keys with them. Law had been able to easily take the hi-rail because the keys had been left in the ignition.

The locomotives didn’t have lockable doors. The Skin Clan must have added a lock of some type.

Law crouched at the edge of the roof. She couldn’t see anything that would keep Bare Snow from opening the door. It must have been bolted on the inside. There were four other doors on the engine; they were flush with the sides to reduce wind resistance. Inset ladders gave access from the ground, but there would be nothing to hold onto from the roof down.

That left the windshield.

The engine’s hatchet nose ended just short of its high narrow windshield. The thick glass was designed to take the impact of a cinderblock. Bare Snow’s knives, however, were magically sharp and could cut through almost anything.

Law glanced at the passing countryside. They were almost to Rankin Bridge. Homestead was around the next corner and beyond it was South Side Flats. “Alton, if you screwed this up, I’m going to kill you. You’d better have gotten hold of someone by now. We’re coming in hot.”

“Law?” Bare Snow was learning English, but she hadn’t followed what Law had said.

“Nothing. Come on.” Law backed up and leapt across to the engine. At least its roof was wider and flatter. The huge diesel engine throbbed under their feet, a sound felt deep inside as well as heard. Once inside it would be a simple thing to sabotage the motor. It would stop the train, though, within a few miles of Station Square. The oni could reach Oktoberfest within an hour at a brisk walk. If Alton hadn’t gathered a force that could stop the oni, then it would be a slaughter.

They needed to crash the train.

There were countless safety measures in place to keep just that from happening. Law needed to override them all. It was going to take time.

They were running out of time.

Law crouched down near the leading edge of the engine. From the vantage point, they could see the entire locomotive. She tapped her lips, wanting Bare Snow to lean close. Many engineers like riding with the side windows open; there was a chance they’d be overheard.

She felt Bare Snow’s warmth beside her and then felt her soft hair against her lips. “Cut the right window in a cross with your knife. I will kick it.”

“Kick it?” Bare Snow’s doubt was clear even at a whisper.

“My boots will protect my feet from the glass.”

“Are you sure this is wise?”

It took Law a moment to realize why Bare Snow doubted the move. The female was sure Law would fall. “Look, there’s a wide lip at the top of the cowcatcher. I can brace myself against it when I kick.”

“I see no cows. Why would they even be catching cows?”

“It’s just a name for the nose guard thingy. Don’t worry. Ready?”

“Go.” Bare Snow vanished from her side.

Law slid down the left windshield to the snub nose. She caught hold of the five-inch-steep lip of the cowcatcher. There were three elves in the engine wearing Wind Clan blue. The one in the engineer’s chair was pointing at the sudden fracture in the right-hand windshield. The one directly behind him shouted in surprise and dismay when Law appeared on the nose. She kicked hard at the cut glass.

The windshield shattered into pieces that cascaded into the cab.

Bare Snow killed the engineer before he could touch the controls; he jerked backward, blood spraying from his throat. The elf behind him had an assault rifle that he aimed toward the falling engineer.

“Down!” Law pulled her pistol and fired desperately. The gunshots thundered in the tight confides of the locomotive. Bullets ricocheted off the edge of the windshield by Law’s head and smashed through the left side window. The elf went down, Law’s three shots hitting him in the chest.

A third elf came running from the back of the locomotive and went down as if clotheslined. Law held her fire.

“Bare?”

“Clear!” Bare Snow called from somewhere far in the back of the engine. “Is this what makes it go?”

Law slipped through the window, careful not to hit any of the levers or buttons on the front dash. The floor was slippery with blood and the coppery smell mixed with hot diesel fumes.

Law stepped over the bodies to glance into the next section of the locomotive. The massive diesel engine took up most of the space, rumbling loudly. “Yes, that’s what makes the train go.”

A heavy latch had been installed on the metal hatch to the gangway connection. Through the window, she could see the first passenger car. Disguised oni warriors jerked open the opposing door. They obviously expected a passageway; the lead warrior fell out of sight.

Law ducked down. “We’re going to get company. That door will only slow them down for a while.”

An alarm sounded on the console. Law swore and dashed back to the engineer’s chair.

“What is that?” Bare asked.

“Dead man’s switch.”

“They have switches for dead men? But he’s an elf.”

“It’s a safety feature. Every fifteen minutes the alarm sounds and the engineer needs to indicate he’s awake at the console by pushing the button.” She hunted for said button. Luckily everything was neatly labeled in Elvish. She punched the button. “If he doesn’t respond, the train will stop. We’re lucky it’s not every ninety seconds like on Earth or we’d be screwed. The elves didn’t want the switch installed; they wanted to know if humans had attention spans of gnats.”

“Don’t we want to stop the train?” Bare Snow asked.

Law glanced up. They were passing the tall waterslides of Sandcastle. The South Side Flats started in five miles. “We’re too close to the festival. We need to keep the train moving; we can’t let the oni get off. Between Fort Pitt Bridge and West End Bridge is the Elfhome Freight Yard. The main line ends there. There’s three sets of tracks out of it, but half a dozen switches need to be in the right position for a train this size to clear through it safely.”

Bare Snow understood immediately. “Smash! In the name of the moon, I punish you!”

Law eyed the throttle housing. “We need to get this rigged so they can’t change the speed, and then we need to get back to the hi-rail before the train hits the freight yard.”

“Rigged?”

Law tapped the throttle as she examined the control. “This lever controls the speed. I want it so they can’t move it.”

Bare Snow sliced off the lever.

“Um.” Law eyed the remains. “Well.” She poked experimentally at it. She could see the shaft inside the housing, but she couldn’t get her fingers onto it. If the oni could find a pair of needle nose pliers, they might be able to shift it, but they probably wouldn’t have time to find a pair. Law pointed at the brake lever. “Do this one too.”

Hot Metal Bridge appeared, marking the start of South Side Flats. They had ten minutes before the train hit the freight yard. She wedged the two sheared off levers onto the console so the horn blew in a continuous blast. “We have to go!” She shouted over the blare.

They scrambled out of the broken window.

Luckily, the oni had extended the gangway connection and Law crossed to the passenger cars unseen. She focused on moving as fast as she could, trying to ignore that they were speeding toward destruction with oni hot on their tail. South Side Flats was flashing past on the right as she ran. Twenty-first Street. Nineteenth Street. Thirteenth. Under the Tenth Street Bridge. Over the level crossing at Ninth.

She risked glancing behind her, knowing that Panhandle Bridge was coming up. While light-rail crossed high enough to let barges travel up the Monongahela River, its on-ramps started at street level. Did they have clearance?

No.

“Down!” Law shouted, hoping that Bare Snow heard her over the screaming train horn. She dropped down to all fours.

They flashed under the bridge, the steel support beams just a foot above her head.

A chaotic sea of bodies surrounded Station Square. Stone Clan black filled the Hooters parking lot. Alton had somehow roused the Harbingers. Humans fled in all directions, trying to leave the area before the fighting started. Where were Usagi and the kids? Had they gotten to someplace safe? Why was anyone still at Oktoberfest? Hadn’t Alton warned anyone?

The trapped oni smashed out the windows of the passenger cars. They recognized shit hitting the fan when they saw it. Instead of bluffing it out while disguised, they’d decided to fight. Rifles bristled from the openings. The oni opened fire on the elves. The bullets came ricocheting back as they hit the Harbinger’s shield wall.

With a sudden roar of deafening noise and searing heat, the first passenger car exploded into flame.

Windwolf was in the house.

Law ran faster as three more passenger cars erupted. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

This was going to give new meaning to “hit by friendly fire.”

Law reached the last passenger car. Bare Snow was somewhere ahead of her, still invisible. Smithfield Bridge rushed toward her, too low to clear. Three more cars erupted into flame. She couldn’t duck down and wait for the bridge—she might become toast on the other side. She risked everything to dash forward and fling herself off the end. She felt the steel girders brush the spiked tips of her hair as she fell. She hit the white canvas of the tents stacked on the flatcar. There was another deep “whooof” as the last passenger cars went up in flame. She scrambled forward. Smithfield Bridge passed overhead, a momentary shield against the elf lord’s power. The flatcar was only eighty-some feet but it felt like miles long as she stumbled over the bloody canvas, dodging dead oni bodies, trying to get to the safety of the hi-rail before the next flame strike landed.

She hit the end of the flatcar and leapt, landing on the hi-rail’s hood. The windshield was gone; she had no idea when and where they’d lost it. She slid across the hood and into the passenger seat. “Bare?”

“Here!” Bare Snow called from driver’s side.

“Brakes!”

Bare Snow stomped on the brakes. Law nearly flew back out the windshield. She caught hold of the dashboard and Bare Snow grabbed her. The steel wheels screamed in protest, metal against metal.

“Sorry!” Bare Snow cried.

The flatcar went up in flame. The fire licked the hood of the hi-rail.

Law swung back into the cab. She slammed the Land Cruiser into reverse. “Gas!”

They raced backward away from the burning train.

The burning train sped toward the Fort Pitt Bridge, shedding oni out the side doors. The laws of physics were not kind to them; they didn’t move after tumbling across the track bed at sixty miles per hour.

There was another roar, deeper and louder, and an invisible force hit the locomotive. It tumbled sidewise like a child’s toy, dragging the burning passenger cars off the rail. Fear flooded through Law. Where was everyone that she cared about? Had they gotten to safety? Were any of them in the path of the tumbling train cars?

With a deafening thunderclap, an invisible force hit the hi-rail. The world became a confusing tumble of smashing glass and crushing metal. All the airbags inflated in an explosion of white.

They landed upside down.

“Law?” Bare Snow whispered.

“I’m fine.” Law wondered why they were whispering. Oh, right, we just got taken out by the elves who are probably nearby.

Play dead or bolt?

Considering that the concussion of the first hit had been absorbed by the now limp airbags, running would probably be good.

Law scrambled out the broken window.

The hi-rail was surrounded by elves.

She froze, hands up in what she hoped was the universal gesture of surrender. “I’m human! I’m Wind Clan!” Which probably wasn’t the best thing to say, since the elves were all in Stone Clan black, but it was true. Since she was in a household with Bare Snow, she’d chosen her clan alliance.

A male domana came stalking through the laedin-caste soldiers that had rifles leveled at Law. All of the warriors were studies in brown, reminding Law of humans from India. Law wasn’t sure if the elf lord was showing his clan pride or if he was one of those jerks who liked to appear menacing by dressing all in black. He succeeded better than most.

He gave Law a cold glance and turned away. “Kill it.”

The air around Law changed and sounds muted slightly.

“Now, now, now, Cana Lily, you can’t go killing everything.” Forest Moss was unmistakable from his white hair to his missing eye. Last Law had heard, he’d gone mad, blown up a bunch of mannequins in Kaufmann’s and then disappeared. While his hair was clean and neatly braided, dust still clung to his heavily wrinkled clothing. Mad or not, he was holding a shield spell around Law, protecting her. “You must take care, lest you harm our fair allies.”

The other Stone Clan male snorted in contempt. “It is just some lowborn human trash.”

“Hark! Hark!” Forest Moss put a hand to his ear. “I think I hear our cruel master’s voice. Certainly that’s the meter of his verse. ‘Crush the weak and helpless under foot.’ Yes, I recognize that sonnet. I think it continues with ‘burn the newborns to blackened soot.’ ”

Cana Lily reared back as if slapped in the face. “Do you slander me?”

“Do you think that I meant you?” Forest Moss pressed a hand to his chest, seeming genuinely surprised and dismayed. “Why would you think that? Do you recognize yourself in those words?”

Forest Moss waved at the wrecked and burning train. “Look around you. See the chaos that our masters have caused. They’ve dressed their vile creations in our brave warriors’ clothes and set them on our dear allies. Do you really need to see the evil in flesh before you can recognize it?”

“The Skin Clan are all dead,” Cana Lily growled.

“Can you not see the way they still control us? Here, let me explain. Two bulls were standing in a field when a snake slithered up. One bull wisely ran away. The other stood still as the snake castrated it, put a yoke upon its neck, hooked it up to an overloaded wagon and then cried out, ‘Look at your lazy brother running away when there’s work to be done! Is he not evil? Shall we not hate him forever?’ The newly made ox took it to heart. He refused to listen to his free brother who called out, ‘You’re a hundred times his size, crush him under your hooves!’ The ox carried the snake to wherever the snake desired, hating his brother instead of his master.”

Cana Lily frowned in anger and confusion. “Are you calling me an ox?”

“I worry about you, Clansmate,” Forest Moss said earnestly. “Hate has always been the blinder used by those who own slaves. It allows those they enslave to only see those who escaped the yoke, and not the one that sits holding the reins. The moment you hear anyone fear-mongering and pointing fingers, you should look for the shackle on your ankle.”

“Don’t belittle me, you mad idiot.”

“Yes, yes, I’m very mad indeed. The Skin Clan gave me to their twisted beasts who burned all reason out of my mind along with my eye. It cast me into darkness that swallowed everything. But the sun has finally risen on my dark night and I will kill to keep that sun shining.”

Cana Lily raised his hand as if to strike.

Law flinched. All her instincts were screaming to run but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself just as these two started to brawl. All around her was evidence of the power that they wielded.

“Cana Lily!” Windwolf swept between the two. He had a dozen or more sekasha in Wind Clan blue arrayed around him. Among the elves was Jin Wong, the spiritual leader of the tengu, and several of his winged warriors.

Windwolf pointed angrily toward Oakland. “If you cannot keep your focus on the enemy, Cana Lily, then go, now, and get back on your gossamer. We are at war! Save your ire for the oni.”

“That female was on that!” Cana Lily indicated the burning wreckage of the train. He apparently didn’t know the name of the human invention.

“She supplies food to the enclaves,” Jin Wong said quietly. Being that Law never interacted with any tengu, the only way he could know was via Alton Kryskill. “She is trustworthy. She was enlisted to help look for domi’s cousin. She called with news that she found this mess and warned of its coming.”

That confirmed that the Kryskills had connections with the tengu; the whole way, up to the top ranks.

“The warning was wrong!” Cana Lily protested. “There were to be two vehicles colliding.”

“Human technology has its weaknesses,” Windwolf said. “The message was cut off in mid-transmission. We were warned that the oni had control of the incoming train; we prepared for everything that they could do with it.”

“What was she doing on it?” Cana Lily pointed again at the train to make up for his lack of vocabulary.

Law opened her mouth to answer and then thought better of it. Once she started to explain, everything might come out, including Trixie, Usagi’s kids, and Bare Snow.

“Obviously keeping it from stopping,” Windwolf said. “If the oni had control of the train, they would have slowed it to debark. How long are you going to stand there arguing with us while the real enemy escapes to wreak more havoc?”

Cana Lily glared at them and then spun on his heel to stalk away. “You keep monsters too close to your side, Wolf! They will eat your people when your back is turned.”

“He just doesn’t get it.” Forest Moss gazed after Cana Lily with what seemed to be true sadness on his face. “We can’t allow anyone to be treated like animals or the power-mad will use it against us. They alone will be glorified like gods and everyone else will be fodder for the beasts.”

“Verily,” Windwolf murmured. “We trod that line closely even before the humans arrived on our world. The half-caste or the mixed clan were treated like dirt merely because they weren’t considered pure.”

“Welcome to the new age!” Forest Moss cried in English and then lapsed back to Elvish. “Onward! I long to return to my sun and moon!”

He strode off, singing what sounded like “Radioactive” punctuated with explosions. They watched him go.

Windwolf waited until the Stone Clan domana was out of sight before giving Law a bow. “Thank you. You have saved more than the lives of those who were celebrating here. If the oni had been able to attack unchecked, then war would have broken out between the elves and the humans.”

The elf had no idea that he owed even more to her and Bare Snow. It was nice, though, to be thanked for part of it.

“I have friends here,” Law said. “Someplace. Or at least, I did.” Usagi was the one Law was most worried about; she had been at Oktoberfest alone with five kids. Tiffani would have fled instantly. Ellen had a brother living nearby. Trixie was good at landing on her feet.

“My people started to vacate this area minutes after you called with the news,” Jin Wong said. “Some stayed to fight, but those with children fled.”

Relief nearly took Law to her knees. She breathed out and cautioned herself that just because everyone had been warned, didn’t mean everyone reached safety.

Tiffani’s fishing pool had been trampled. The water had drained to a mud puddle. The little gleaming fish lay scattered on the ground, long past saving. Law took the fact that they could find nothing of Trixie’s booth as a sign that the Changs had packed up and left long before the oni arrived. Ellen’s little house had been battened down with storm shutters and the charcoal grill drowned with water, so she’d beaten an orderly retreat.

All the little stuffed bunnies sat abandoned at Usagi’s booth. Alarmingly, the cash box was still tucked under the counter, unlocked. Law picked it up, feeling sick with fear. Of course with five children to shepherd to safety, Usagi would have needed her hands free to fight or hold onto a kid. Had they gotten home safely? All Law could get on her cell phone was a Shutdown message of all connections busy. Everyone in Pittsburgh was trying to find out if their friends and family were safe.

Bare Snow whimpered and picked up something from the ground. It was a rabbit hat that belonged to one of the kids.

“I’m sure they got home safe,” Law said. “Let’s go check there.”

Dusk bled to night as they rode up Mount Washington on the incline. Part of Station Square burned unchecked. Lightning occasionally struck out of the clear sky. Sudden eruptions of flame would follow seconds later.

Law picked her way down Usagi’s toy-strewn sidewalk to knock on the door. “Usagi! Usagi! Is anyone home?”

There was the thunder of small feet. The door flung open and the entire herd of half-elves flung themselves at Bare Snow. The rabbit hats had been abandoned for a wide variety of wings.

“We flew!” Moon Rabbit shouted as she scaled Bare Snow. “We flew! It was awesome!”

The others hopped up and down and shrugged their shoulders to make their fake wings flutter. “We flew! We flew!”

And then Usagi was hugging Law tightly. “Oh, I’ve been so worried about you two!”

“Us?” Law hadn’t told Usagi anything about chasing after oni.

“The tengu said you were the one that stumbled across the train while helping Duff look for Tinker’s cousin.”

Duff? Oh! Alton’s little brother! He worked at the bakery with Hazel. Widget hadn’t been dragged off to do computer work for the bakery; she’d been hijacked by the Kryskills to hack into the city’s camera network.

“Widget sent the tengu to get you to safety,” Law guessed.

“They didn’t know how much time there was before the train arrived, so they just flew us straight up from Station Square.”

“It was awesome!” Moon Rabbit cried.

“Scarier than hell,” Usagi murmured. “At first I was angry, yanked away from all our work that way.” She glanced toward the wall of windows overlooking South Side. She had a clear view of the train wreck. “I remember when you brought me Widget. She was still shivering from trying to swim the river in the middle of winter. I was afraid to take her in. You kept begging me and I was thinking ‘you just don’t want to be saddled with her.’ ”

That was true. Law didn’t want the girl underfoot; Law walked too much on the dangerous fringe to have someone like Widget trailing along. “Sorry about that.”

Usagi laughed and hugged her harder. “I’m thanking you! You were right. I was wrong. She’s sweet and funny and smart and she saved all our lives today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Law hadn’t known it would turn out that way. She had only known that Widget needed help. She’d had no idea that Widget would someday be able to pay her back tenfold. She supposed that was the natural order. By lifting Widget up, Law had given her the power to help others. They were daisy-chained together; acts of goodwill looped back around. Law had saved Windwolf. He had protected her without even knowing how much he owed her. Tinker saved the tengu, and they in turn protected Usagi and her children. Around and around, kindness being paid forward until it returned.

It was what Pittsburgh needed. What Elfhome needed; people helping one another without concern of clan or race or species.