by Wen Spencer
A call to the Cranberry police concerning people trying to cross the border illegally would have been diverted to the EIA. Andre worked for the EIA; it was possible that all Widget succeeded in doing was alerting him that she was no longer locked in the creepy house’s bathroom. It also meant that Law couldn’t contact the Pittsburgh Police about an attack on Windwolf. They’d turn the matter over to the EIA since it involved elves. If Andre had arranged for Bare Snow to be diverted to Pittsburgh from halfway around the world, Law was sure that he had someone covering EIA dispatch to intercept any such calls. Law would bet her Dodge on it.
The problem was that if the shit hit the fan, Brousseau could and probably would start a manhunt for Bare Snow. Enough people knew that she was in town; he’d start the search with “probable cause” and probably make sure that she didn’t survive capture.
“We need to get a step ahead of Brousseau. We have a name now.” She leaned forward to check the listing. It gave an EIA office as his address. “Bastard. Can you print me a copy of this?”
“Going to the police with it?”
“No, the elves.”
“Someone in Howling’s household betrayed him,” Bare Snow said. “We were never sure who, but the false information that the laedin-caste male had could have only come from someone close to him. Windwolf has gathered most of his grandfather’s household. Any one of them—except the sekasha—could have betrayed Howling.”
Which meant going to the enclave could take them face to face with the traitor.
“So we waylay Windwolf. Chili Pepper said he was…oh shit!”
“What?”
“He’s at the airport.” Law leaned over and pulled up a Pittsburgh map. “The only reasonable way to get to the airport is the I-376. If he took the exit at Route 60…follow it to here, turn at Woodmere Drive and again at Roswell Drive and he’s in the trap. Three turns.”
“That’s still really out of the way…” Widget protested.
“Route 60 is one of the few roads in that area that still has all its bridges. We’re almost to Shutdown. The highways are going to be filling up as people start lining up at the checkpoints so they can be sure to get across the border this cycle.”
“So this starts with him looking for an alternate route back from the airport?” Widget started to tap madly on her tablet. “Oh! Blast it all! We have to stop this! Prince Yardstick is the bomb!”
Law growled softly. “The problem is that the elves don’t use phones. If I want to talk to the damn enclaves, I have to drive out there and knock on the damn door. That will take me the wrong direction through all of the Shutdown madness downtown. If I start driving around, hoping that I can run into him and then get him to stop without getting cut down by the sekasha…”
“Wait. Wait. Wait,” Widget murmured and then flung her hands up into the air and wiggled her fingers. “Muhahahahaha!”
“Is that supposed to be good or bad?” Law asked.
“I have done magic!” Widget gave the evil laugh again. “It’s a little known fact that all cars sold in Pittsburgh—with the exception of antique vehicles like your Dodge—still have antitheft GPS systems. Little known because the city is stuck in the last century, technology-wise. Really—I cry at night for the Internet of Earth. I miss it so.”
“What is it? This antitheft whatever.”
“My point exactly.” Widget ducked, grinning. “Simply put, the United States managed to get into the treaty that they could have a handful of satellites up in Elfhome space. They’re all hush-hush about it. It’s all part of the ‘Pittsburgh is still an American city’ brouhaha that they’re still fighting over in the UN. Since they’re American, the satellites aren’t under EIA control. Nor can the local police access it.”
“Why the hell not?”
“No idea. Probably politics. The University of Pittsburgh, though, has access to them and their security is full of student-made backdoors. Voila!” She held up her tablet to show off a bunch of dots moving on a map.
“And that is…?”
“Our mystery SUV! It’s in…Fairywood. Where’s that?” She turned the tablet back and zoomed out. “Oh, downstream, our side of the river.”
“And those other dots?”
“Um.” She put down her tablet to tap on it again. “This one is BAS-0053.” She read off another one of the identifiers and crosschecked it. “It’s also an EIA UPU vehicle. It looks like they have a whole fleet out in Fairywood. Four at least. Acting weird. They’re like ants; crawling around aimlessly.”
“They’re grid searching,” Law said. “Can you pull up the viceroy’s cars?”
The elves had a small fleet of the big gray luxury cars for Windwolf and Sparrow’s exclusive use. Normally they were kept in coach houses of Poppymeadow’s when the viceroy wasn’t in town.
“Let’s see.” Widget closed the window and pulled up a database. She searched for information faster than Law could follow. “Yes, they do have antitheft systems. Oh. Oh. Blast it all!”
A lone Rolls Royce sat motionless in Fairywood, the EIA cars prowling around it like a pack of wargs. This wasn’t one lone nutcase elf posing as a human; this was some secret alliance of evil. The other Rolls Royces milled about in Oakland, obviously looking for their lost leader in the wrong place.
“They screwed up their hit on the viceroy.” Law watched the markers on the screen move. It was fairly easy to read the activity on the screen since she knew the design of the trap. “He’s on foot; running for his life. They probably have people chasing him.” She remembered the dogs barking in Fairywood. “Or dogs. Yeah, probably dogs. They’re forcing him toward the river.” There were only a handful of bridges across the Ohio River and the waters were full of man-eating fish. “The cars will close in from either side, like the jaws of trap.”
“Something has changed,” Bare Snow whispered.
“What do you mean?” Law asked.
“They have stayed hidden for thousands of years, carefully keeping to the shadows. This is too bold a move. Something has changed.”
“Well, someone has dropped a major human city onto the face of the planet.”
Bare Snow was shaking her head. For the first time since Law found her, the female looked frightened. “They think they have the upper hand. They would not act so brazenly if they did not know they could quickly take control of all of the Westernlands.”
Her history lesson suddenly made sense. She had laid out what it was that these hidden elves wanted: a world where the lives of others meant nothing when weighed against their comforts.
Law was getting that familiar angry feeling that she got from having her nose rubbed in injustice. It was a clenching of teeth until her jaw hurt, and the nails of her fingers digging into her clenched hands.
“We have to go,” Bare Snow said in English.
Law nodded in agreement.
Bare Snow threw her arms around Law and kissed her. It was so sudden that Law didn’t really get a chance to enjoy it.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Widget cried. “Really?”
“Um.” Law was still off-balanced by the kiss. “Yeah. I’m an expert at getting people out of shit-deep messes.”
* * *
Pittsburgh had been a city of bridges; nearly five hundred just in the city proper and another thousand scattered in the hills around it. It no longer had the means to keep them all maintained. It lacked the money and the manpower and simple necessity of linking one abandoned neighborhood to another. Main roads linked the city together, but not in a short and direct method. An hour before Shutdown and those main roads were bumper to bumper with several thousand vehicles trying to get into position at the checkpoints or back home before the floodgates of Earth opened up.
Luckily the traffic kept to the main roads, leaving the side streets, backyards, and occasionally shallow streams clear for Law. (Got to love six-wheel drive.) As the crow flies (which was close to the way Law drove) it was six miles to Windgap.
“
We need to be careful,” Law said. “Just in case we run into the viceroy’s guard.”
“They were decoyed somehow from his side. They will not know where to even start looking for him.”
They reached Fairywood. The viceroy’s car sat on the last dead end street, its headlights still shining on the house where Law had found Bare Snow. The driver’s and the back passenger doors were open. One of the sekasha warriors lay sprawled on the ground beside the big gray luxury car. He’d been dragged from the car and mauled by a large animal.
“Oh no,” Law whispered. Was it the same “teenage” male that she’d met just hours ago? She crouched down beside the bloody body and shone her flashlight on the pale face. No. Stormhorse’s eyes had been dark brown and this male had eyes of Wind Clan blue. He still looked impossibly young and vulnerable. Pat Hershel had said that it was the “babies” of the bodyguards that knew how to drive.
“He sacrificed himself,” Bare Snow murmured sadly. “The metal within the car kept the viceroy from using his domana spells. The holy one drew the attackers to his side of the vehicle so the viceroy could escape out the other way and use his magic.”
“Why didn’t his shield spell protect him?” Law panned her flashlight over the ground. There were four pug dogs scattered around him. Judging by the massive burn marks on the dogs and crisscrossing the pavement, they’d been killed by lightning. It looked like a thunderstorm had opened up a can of whoop-ass on twenty square feet of Fairywood. The pugs had to be the little yap dogs she’d heard barking earlier. They were just tiny things; the heaviest might have been fifteen pounds. They couldn’t have been what mauled the warrior.
Dozens of large bloody paw prints mapped the sekasha’s death. They were larger than a warg’s, didn’t have the wolflike X-shape arrangements of toes and pad, nor were there marks left by the nonretracting claws. They looked like mountain lion tracks, but those were normally only four inches across. These were nearly eight inches, meaning that the beast was freaking huge.
“The shield draws power from the local ambient magic. It can only afford so much protection. Wyverns. Black willows. Saurus. Wargs. If the beast can pin the warrior, its only a matter of time before the spell fails.”
Beyond the abandoned car, the dead bodies, the bloody tracks, and the scorch marks, there was no sign of the viceroy. Distantly Law could hear a pack of animals howling. The cadence was wrong for a warg; it was much more the fast baying of excited, little dogs. The sound echoed loud and weirdly distorted. It nearly seemed like the dogs were at the bottom of a well, the steep sides echoing as well as amplifying the howls. It was coming from Chartiers Creek, a half-mile or so off. She kept losing the sound of it under the rumble of a nearby freight train that followed the creek bottom to the Ohio River.
“Idiots,” Bare Snow murmured. “They sprang the attack too soon. They should have waited. Once the city returns to Earth, Wolf Who Rules will be without magic, and defenseless.”
Chartiers Creek fed into the Ohio River at McKees Rocks a few miles away. The safety of the Rim lay just across the river. The only safe crossing was the McKees Rocks Bridge. There was a little-known railroad bridge at Brunots Island, but she doubted the viceroy—on the run for his life—would think of it. No, he’d head for the massive stone bridge, lit up for barges on the river and any random plane to see.
Law glanced at her phone. They had less than thirty minutes. “Those dogs are still hunting the viceroy. They haven’t caught him yet. We need to find him.”
Bare Snow shook her head. “He has every reason not to trust me and none to believe you. He’s too dangerous to approach. He’ll kill anyone he thinks is part of this trap.”
There was a sudden flash of lightning and an immediate boom of thunder.
“Right. Keep our distance from the male throwing lightning.”
Law had enough experience with traps to know all their frailties. Even brainless crayfish would escape their cage once all the bait was eaten. She and Bare Snow had the element of surprise on their side. The joy of being quirky-odd was that, even when the jerks saw her coming, they had no idea how much trouble they were in. A lesbian, a porcupine, and an underage assassin. No, there was no way these guys knew what was about to hit them.
* * *
They caught up to the first SUV on Creek Road.
Law drove up out of Chartiers Creek just before the water deepened. She plowed through an old chain link fence and fishtailed onto the narrow gravel road that ran along the stream.
She knew she should be screaming scared, but the cool electric rush was settling in. A righteous fight was like hooking a big fish. There was a thrill in the battle. It was as addictive as any drug. That these scumbags were out en masse hunting a young male and meant to frame an innocent female for his murder, she felt nothing but righteousness about any damage she dealt out.
She caught the gleam of lights off the creek; there was a car ahead on the road. She flicked off her headlights and used the part in the trees fringing the road, revealing the lighter night sky, to navigate. The road was narrow and rough, just a car-wide beaten path. Around a bend in the creek, where the channel narrowed and grew deeper, the road widened. One of the white SUVs was trying to turn around, taking advantage of the grassy bank where locals fished for river sharks. Even in the distance, Law could make out the lighted license plate. It was BAS-0053. It was one of the EIA unmarked cars.
She threw the Dodge into low gear and stomped on the gas. At the last moment, she blared her horn, seconds before ramming the SUV broadside. The Dodge’s grill guard rammed into the lighter truck even as its driver instinctively steered away. The SUV rolled down the bank to vanish into the water, upside down. Only the gleam of its headlights marked it in the glittering darkness of the creek. A large dark figure of a river shark cut through the beams of light.
“That should keep them busy.” Law backed up and straightened out on the road.
“Awesome possum.” Bare Snow breathed the phrase that she must have learned from the half-elf babies.
Law flicked her lights back on and roared down the little dirt road. She knew the feeling racing through her like electricity. She got this every time she went snarling out to save some girl from a bad situation. There was no murky doubt or fear, just bold determination and a sense of right that made the rest of her life seem like she was barely alive.
She realized that up to this point, all the pressure to conform, to be what other people wanted her to be, had been a huge mountain pressing down on her. It was only at moments like this—when the scales shifted so that what was at stake was someone’s life—that she knew, regardless of what everyone else wanted of her, her life made sense. She didn’t need to live in a house, have a dog as a pet, work nine to five with a boss telling her what to do, paint her fingernails, fuss with her hair, and lust after some male that would complete her life. All that overwhelming messy little shit didn’t matter anymore. She could be herself, completely and totally, and life was good.
She laughed at the knowledge that risking her life was easier than living it.
They caught the second SUV on the bare shoulder of the road, a mile down. It sat a dozen feet from the stop sign where Creek Road branched. The graveled street changed names to Thompson Avenue as it ducked under a low-slung iron railroad bridge to continue following Chartiers Creek or turned sharply and went up the hill. The SUV’s interior light was on; its driver was struggling with an actual paper map. The Earth-bound freight train was rumbling over the bridge, drowning out the Dodge’s approach.
The map and the train combined to explain why the SUVs were on the odd back roads. McKees Rocks was bisected by the railroad tracks. While a person on foot could scramble between the slow-moving train cars, the SUVs needed to find ways under or over the train. There were only three points were a car could cross and they were nearly a mile apart. The question became: which side of the tracks was Windwolf? The hounds were howling nearby but the sound echoed in the river valley, making
it difficult to pinpoint their direction.
Luckily, Law didn’t have to find Windwolf to protect him. She only had to derail his killers. She swung in a wide half-circle and rammed the SUV into the driver’s door. The Dodge shuddered at the impact, but dug in all four back tires and heaved. The SUV slid on the gravel and then on the grass creek bed beyond. It tipped beyond its center of gravity and tumbled down the bank. It splashed into the dark water.
Her grandfather must be spinning up to mach speed in his grave.
Two down. Two to go. Unfortunately, with the name change, the Creek Road turned to follow the train tracks. There would be no more ramming cars into the water.
* * *
Betting that Windwolf wouldn’t know McKees Rocks any better than his attackers, Law crossed under the railroad bridge. The viceroy had to be playing a cautious game of cat and mouse, since he had no way of knowing how many people were chasing after him or how heavily armed they were. The east side of the tracks was known as the Bottoms. It was a flat and desolate area, prone to flooding during the spring thaw. Many of the buildings had been abandoned before the first Startup; part and parcel of Pittsburgh’s steel-mill age. The only businesses left in the area were a large railroad yard and a sprawling junkyard. It was a maze of hiding spaces. More importantly, it was the shortest distance to the McKees Rocks Bridge.
Law checked the clock again. Minutes were left before Pittsburgh returned to Earth. The hunting dogs were baying close by. They were still miles from the Rim; Windwolf was going to be stranded on the wrong world. She still didn’t have a good solid plan beyond “whack them hard.” It probably was a good time to start thinking of one.
Obviously she needed to nail the other SUVs before the scattered pieces realized that they were under attack.
A few blocks down she found one of the Fords sitting empty under a lone streetlamp. Law tucked the Dodge in among sumac brushes growing in an old gravel parking lot, thirty feet from the Explorer. The white SUV gleamed bright in the pool of light. Its back hatch hung open, but the SUV had sat long enough for the timer on the lights to click off.