Wolf Who Rules

Chapter 14: A Parting Of Ways

Tinker fled the freezing cold of Reinhold’s and stumbled out into the baking heat of the summer evening. Oh gods, could her life get any more fucked over? Everyone she thought she knew was turning into total strangers. Tooloo was telling everyone she wasn’t married, Lain was her aunt and her grandfather had lied and lied and lied. He had always told her that her mother was dead at the time of her conception and that her egg had been stored at the same donor bank as her father’s sperm. He maintained that he randomly selected the egg from a vast list of anonymous donors. He took the truth to his grave, not breathing one word that she had living family as close as Lain. He died and left her and Oilcan with no one to turn to. She’d gone nearly mad with fear and grief, and he had lied about everything, and then left them all alone.

“Domi, where are we going?” Pony asked quietly beside her.

She blinked and paid attention for the first time to where they were. They were walking up Ohio River Boulevard, half way to McKees Rocks Bridge. The two Rolls Royces followed slowly behind her, effectively blocking traffic — not that there was any on this lonely stretch of road late in the evening. “I don’t know. How the hell am I supposed to know. What day is it? I never know what day it is anymore. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen a calendar? Thursday I destroyed the world and Friday I slept. Saturday we moved to the enclave and slept some more. Sunday a dragon used me for a straw. Monday I was on the front cover of the newspaper. Tuesday I got another person to follow along behind me and ask me impossible questions and I dreamed about my mother — who may or may not be dead — and this mystery person, Black. Wednesday. Today is Wednesday.”

“If you say it is,” Pony murmured.

“Tomorrow is Thursday. Thursday is the day I take scrap metal to the steel mill. They cut me a check. I drive downtown, deposit the check except for fifty bucks. I stop at Jenny Lee Bakery in Market Square and pick up a dozen chocolate thumbprint cookies. Thursdays the thumbprints are fresh. I head back to work and put in a few hours paying bills and filling orders. I cut Oilcan his paycheck and give it to him so he can go to the bank before it closes. We get together with Nathan and Bowman and some of the other cops at the Church Brew Works in the Strip. I get the pierogies or the pizza or the buffalo wings — I like being flexible — and try expensive beer. I liked beer. Now it just tastes like piss.”

As if she’d summoned him, a Pittsburgh Police cruiser pulled over on the other side of the road slightly ahead of her and Nathan got out.

“Tinker?” He came across the four lanes toward her. “What the hell are you doing?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know? I was never an elf before. I was never in charge of anyone. People left me alone. I could go all day without seeing anyone but Oilcan or you. I cooked my own food. Washed my own clothes. It’s not like I blow up the world everyday.”

Nathan walked backwards, staying a few feet ahead of her, scanning the bodyguards and the Rolls Royces. “Are you,” he asked quietly, “trying to go home?”

“I don’t know.” And she didn’t. She was nearly to the intersection where she could continue on Ohio River Boulevard or cross over the McKees Rocks Bridge or head up to Lain’s house — not that Lain was home — but really, she had not a clue which direction she was going to go — although she was starting to suspect that it would be straight through — staying on Ohio River Boulevard until it hit the Rim.

“Do you want me to take you home? Or to Oilcan’s? Lain’s? Tooloo’s? I can take you to a woman’s shelter if you want. I am a cop; you can trust me to help you if you need help.”

She made a rude noise. “How do you know who you can trust? How do you know when people are telling you the truth?”

“Tinker, I’m sorry that — I know that doesn’t forgive anything — but I’m sorry. I really thought you felt something for me. I thought that was why you said you wanted to go out on a date. But it’s just like I offered a kid candy; I talked about dating and of course, you were curious. I should have known what you’re like with something new. You don’t stop until you know everything.”

She hit the intersection and needed to make a choice. She nearly went straight through, but then realized that it was getting dark, and none of the streetlights worked out that way. She veered left, almost decided on going across the bridge, but realized that going to her loft would be depressing, and she didn’t want to talk to Tooloo, not now, she’d probably strangle the crazy half-elf. She continued looping to the left. Nathan had a good idea; she should go talk to Oilcan. But that seemed silly, since the shortest way to Oilcan’s was the way she came. Of the four ways out of the intersection, however, only going to Lain’s house remained, and she didn’t want to go there either.

She kept walking, now distinctly making a full circle in the center of the road. The Rolls Royces halted at the intersection, silver ghosts in the twilight. Pony ground to a halt behind her, watching her with a faintly worried look.

“Tinker, are you all right?” Nathan asked.

“Do I look all right? Seriously! I don’t think so. Something has definitely come loose. But can they find out what’s wrong? Nope. Can’t do that.”

“Tink.” Nathan caught her by the wrist. “If you’re not feeling right, walking around in the night isn’t going to solve anything. Let me take you to Lain.”

“No!” She tried to tug her hand free. “I don’t want to see her. She lied to me!”

Nathan ignored her attempts to get loose, pulling her toward his police cruiser. “Then let me take you to your cousin.”

“Pony!” Tinker cried, turning to the sekasha.

She saw the blur of the ejae’s blade and was only registering its meaning when Nathan’s life blood sprayed across her face. His hand tightened a moment on her wrist, and then his fingers went limp. She stared numbly as his hand slipped off her and his body crumbled to the ground with a heavy thud.

With the strength of a black hole, Nathan’s body dragged her gaze down to it. He lay on his side, his wide shoulders canted back so she could see the thick column of his neck. The skin up to the sword cut was unblemished white, and then his neck stopped abruptly in a meaty collar of muscle, bone, and gaping pipes. Blood still fountained rhythmically from a severed vein.

She opened her mouth but couldn’t form any words. She dropped to her knees beside Nathan and touched him — felt the warmth and solidness of his body. His heart still pounded, wild and frantic, pumping out his blood with lessening force until it shuddered to a stop.

What just happened? Nathan can’t be dead — he was just talking to me.

She looked up to Pony and saw he had drawn his sword. Blood dripped from his blade. She whimpered, realizing she had cried out to Pony and he’d reacted as he’d been trained. She had gotten Nathan killed.

An oddly shaped object on the ground behind Pony caught her eye, and she gazed at it for a minute, puzzled, until she realized it was the back of Nathan’s severed head.

She had killed Nathan.

A sound struggled up out of her chest. She pushed a hand against her mouth to keep it in and felt a sticky wetness on her face. She jerked her hand away from her face, stared at the blood covering her hand, and a loud, wordless keen forced its way out of her. Once free, it would not stop. She knelt there, wailing, as her stained hands fluttered about her as if they were trying to escape the sudden brutal reality.

“Domi.” Pony crouched beside her, gathering her into his arms. “Tinker domi.”

She rocked in his arms, keening, holding out her stained hands so he could see the blood on them. Anguish, dark and wild as flood waters, poured into her.

Pony picked her up. Tears blinded her and she slipped into the black swirling hurting, losing sense of everything but the guilt and grief. Fear was creeping in now, as she couldn’t stop herself, as if she’d been pushed out of her own body by the raw distress. Only Pony’s warm, strong presence kept her from falling into complete panic. Slowly she became aware that he had carried her back to the Rolls, and they had driven back to the enclave. Voices of Lemonseed and others of the household came out of the darkness that she seemed to be trapped in.

When Pony sat her down and let her go, Tinker cried out and reached blindly for him.

“I am here, domi.” He pressed close to her as he tenderly washed the blood from her face. “I will not leave you. Nothing could take me from you.”

They were in the bathroom of her suite at Poppymeadow’s. He’d stripped off his sharp-edged wyvern armor. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, clinging to him.

“Domi. Domi.” Pony crooned. “Domi, please, stop crying.”

She tried to push out words, but they came out strangled cries.

“Domi, please.” Pony carried her into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. “If I’m to understand you, you have to speak Elvish.”

“I am!” She wailed, and choked out the words, “I–I wa-wa-want Windwolf” as if they were huge boulders. She needed him there, now, holding her, comforting her, making love to her, to drive away the pain.

“Domi, Stormsong is looking for him.” Pony wiped the tears from her face. “We do not know if he will be able to come.” The thought of being alone threatened to submerge her into anguish. “Oh, domi, please don’t cry.”

She buried her face into Pony’s hair and breathed in his spicy musk scent, warmed by his body. She felt the play of his muscles under his fine cotton undershirt. Desire, suddenly monstrous in strength, surged through her. This time she didn’t even try to resist, terrified of falling back into the dark gnawing pain. She abandoned herself to her need and kissed Pony.

He shifted his head up, giving her full access to his mouth. He tasted of cinnamon. She fumbled with his clothes, wanting to feel him, to anchor herself. The undershirt tore under her desperation, parting to reveal the chiseled lines of his body. He pulled the tattered cloth out of the way, giving her access to his warm skin and hard muscle.

While in the oni cell, she’d been so good, keeping her eyes and hands on a tight leash. Now, she nuzzled down his body to every point she’d resisted, sought out the parts of him that she had only caught glimpses of. He moaned as she freed him from his clothes and savored all his velvet hardness with her mouth.

He reached for her, pulled her up to his mouth, kissed her deeply. He rolled them so she was under him. His body eclipsed the rest of the world, blotting out everything else, so that all she could think of was him. His broad shoulders moving downwards. His strong calloused hands sliding up her dress. His soft hair falling free of his braid to pour over her stomach like silk. His mouth on her, coaxing her into pleasure.

She came gripped him tightly as her climax roared through her. It burned away the overpowering grief and pain that had been threatening to swamp her. Letting go of Pony, she slumped back into the sheets, feeling empty and fragile as a broken eggshell.

Worry filled Pony’s dark eyes as he moved up to lean over her. His erection pressed against her, seeking her entrance. There was a quiet little voice, though, in the back of her head, saying it was time to stop this, that she’d already taken it too far.

“Pony,” she whispered.

He froze. “Domi?”

She swallowed and stroked his check with a trembling hand. “I don’t think,” she whispered, “it would be wise to go farther.”

“I never thought this was wise.” He slid sideways so he was no longer pressed against her opening.

She laughed but her laughter broke in the middle and became a sob. “Oh, Pony, he loved me and I killed him.”

“Oh, domi, please don’t cry.”

“I have to. If I try to keep it in, I’ll just go under again.” It still hurt, but it wasn’t the drowning flood of pain.

She was still crying when the door opened and Windwolf walked into the bedroom.

“Windwolf!” She pushed at Pony so she could get up.

Windwolf’s eyes widened at the sight of her on the bed with Pony. He shouted a command, summoning wind magic. It spilled into the room, the potential glittering at the edge of her teary vision.

Pony was jerked backwards off her and thrown across the room. His shields flared seconds before he hit the wall with a crash — elaborate inlaid paneling splintering under him. He landed on the floor, coiled to spring, one his swords miraculously in his hand.

“No!” Tinker leapt between Windwolf and Pony. Sword aside, she could guess which one was the more dangerous of the two. “Stop it, Windwolf! Don’t hurt him! He didn’t do anything.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing to me.” Windwolf glared furiously at the sekasha. “Did he hurt you?”

“No!”

“Why are you crying then?”

“I killed Nathan!”

Windwolf went still and quiet, gazing down at her. “You did?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” Tinker said.

“No, she did not.” Pony murmured. “I killed him, as is my right.”

“He only did what I told him to do!” she cried and realized that in the same manner, Pony had made love to her. He had thought it unwise, but he had done what she asked of him.

Oh gods, she made love with Pony.

“Oh, shit,” she sniffed. “I think I’m going to cry again. I’m sorry, Windwolf. I didn’t realize Pony would do anything I told him. Anything. That he trusted me to do — the wise thing — not the stupid. This is all my fault.”

Windwolf sighed and glanced to Pony. “Leave us.”

“Domnae.” Pony used the non-possessive form, bowing slightly to Windwolf, but didn’t otherwise move.

“Pony,” Tinker murmured in Elvish. “Go, I need to talk to Wolf Who Rules alone.”

Pony sheathed his sword and bowed out of the room.

That left her alone with her husband, wrapped in Windwolf’s silence.

He reached for her and she flinched back. “I would never,” he said huskily without dropping his arm, “strike you.”

She closed the distance between them and allowed him take her in a loose embrace. “I’m sorry. I was so hurt and confused. I’ve been through so much lately. Do you know that there’s a slickie out there with pictures of me in my nightgown? That when I get attacked, it makes headlines in the newspaper? That women scream when they see me?”

He said nothing for several minutes and then whispered into her hair. “Are you unhappy being my domi?”

She hugged him then, suddenly afraid of losing him. “It’s just — it’s just…” she sobbed. “When humans get married there’s a ring, and a church and people throw rice at you and you get your picture next to the obituaries, and there’s just the two of you, together, all the time, and no body else to get in the middle and confuse things. There’s no oni or royal princes or dragons or nudie pictures!”

“Beloved,” he said after a minute of silence. “I’m not sure if that’s a yes or a no.”

“Exactly!”

He considered another minute and picked her up and carried her to the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m sorry. I’ve broken us.”

“We are not broken.” Windwolf eased her down and lay carefully beside her. “You are hurt and need healing — that’s all.”

Tinker was trying to write her full elfin name in the sand of the enclave’s garden. She knew the runes but any time she went to scribe them out, the letters would creep and crawl oddly.

“You’re dreaming,” Stormsong stood beside her, a ghost of sky blue. “Those kind of things never work. The part of your mind that processes them is asleep. You need dream runes. I could write what you want.”

“No, no, I have to be able to do this. I’m the only one that can do this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Something moved in the darkness of the garden around them. Stormsong activated her shields and they enveloped both of them, brilliant pale blue that was nearly white. “Go away. You’re not wanted here.”

“Give her to us,” Esme prowled the darkness. She was the color of old blood. Black stood weeping in the woods with her host of crows oddly silent — only a rustle of many wings in the night. “We need her. We murdered time and now it’s always six o’clock.”

“No. I won’t let you have her.”

“You’re not stopping us.” Esme pressed a dark hand to the gleaming shell of Stormsong’s shield, the light shafting through her spread fingers like solid spears. “You might be able to keep them out, but not me.”

“You’re hurting her!” Fear filtered into Stormsong’s voice. “Leave her alone.”

Esme moved counter-clockwise around them, trailing her hand across the shield’s radiant, a dark mote on pale brilliance. “There is too much to lose to worry about hurting her.”

“Go away.” Stormsong growled.

Esme had made a complete circle around them, testing the boundaries of Stormsong’s protection. They stood as odd mirror reflections of each other — hair short and spiked — red dark to the point of almost black versus blue paled to nearly white.

“I won’t let you in,” Stormsong said.

“We don’t have time for this!” Esme balled up her hand into a tight fist of blackness, and punched into the light.

Stormsong’s shield failed like a candle snuffed. Tinker fell into darkness.

“…focusfocusfocus…,” she whispered into the black.

A world snapped into being around her, but she ignored it to focus on the control panel in front of her. She punched a set of keys, ones she practiced until her hands ached. Even as she entered the codes, and the world jerked hard to the right, alarms screamed to life.

She hit the intercom pad. “All hands suit up! Suit up!” She shouted, knowing what was coming. “Brace for impact!”

She looked up and found she hadn’t seen the full truth. Instead of one colony ship looming in the great blackness of space, the feed from the front cameras showed several ships colliding together — heaving, twisting, and buckling. For a moment, she could only stare — stunned. Compartments of the ships were collapsing like crushed soda cans — their atmosphere spraying out in plumes of instantly freezing gushers.

She wasn’t able to stop it. It was going to happen anyhow.

“We’re going to hit! We’re going to hit!” Alan Voecks screamed those hated words that had haunted her nightmares for months.

Something cartwheeled toward them, jetted on a haze of frozen oxygen. As it grew larger, she realized it was a human — without a spacesuit. There was time to recognize the face — Nicole Pinder of the Anhe Hao — before the body hit the camera. That front screen went to static…

Tinker bolted out of the dream. She was tight in Stormsong’s arms, panting from the remnants of her terror. “Oh gods! Oh gods!”

“It is over,” Stormsong rubbed her back soothingly. “You are safe with us.”

“Something went wrong,” Tinker cried. “That’s what they’ve been trying to tell me. Something went wrong.”

“Well?” Windwolf spoke from the foot of the bed.

Tinker sat up to discover the room was full of silent people, all watching her sleep. In addition to Windwolf and Pony, Wraith Arrow and Bladebite stood guard. “What the hell?”

“There are other dreamers,” Stormsong said, as if answering a question Tinker had missed. “One seems to be domi’s mother. The others might not be able to reach domi alone, but her mother’s blood connection is giving them all access to domi. Domi’s mother is quite strong but untrained and with the morals of snake; she does not care that what she’s doing is hurting domi. They are crowding into domi’s dreams, leaving her unable to cope with her own nightmares.”

“Why now?” Windwolf asked. “It’s been eighteen years.”

“It might be that becoming an elf awakened latent abilities in domi,” Stormsong said. “Or it might be something that happened when the dragon pulled magic through her at the edge of the Ghostlands. I can’t stop them. United as they are, they are too strong. Something must be done or they will drive the domi mad.”

“Will giving her sanjin help?” Windwolf asked.

“Please, not sanjin,” Tinker whimpered. “I hate that stuff. The oni forced it on me.”

Windwolf gave her a look full of raw grief.

“No, sanjin will only make things worse,” Stormsong said. “Now she can wake up from the nightmare, breaking its hold on her. Drugged, she would be trapped in her dreams.”

“Oh please,” Tinker cried. “Not that.”

“There are some drugs,” Stormsong said, “that she can take for a limited time that will keep her from dreaming completely. Someone more trained and gifted in dreaming would know better what to do.”

“I like the idea of not dreaming.” Tinker crawled across the bed to Windwolf, who took her into his lap.

“You need to dream,” Stormsong said. “Dreams are how your mind heals you from emotional harm. The oni rode you hard, but you were able to heal yourself each night and stay strong. Your mother is raping the very core of you. She will destroy you if we don’t stop this.”

“Can we use some other terms for this?” Tinker asked. “Something non-sexual? This is my mother we’re talking about. Ick.”

“Find what she needs for now,” Windwolf ordered. “I will send for a dreamer.”