by Wen Spencer
“Yes, you! Tell him that we’re doing what he asked and killing the monsters. Be charming. Tell him about the nest at Sandcastle and tell him that we need to be free to look for more.”
“But I want to watch you—ow!” Hal gave a cry of pain even as Jane shouted, “Now!” Guy must have hit Hal again. “I’m making the call. See. The phone is ringing!”
“Take off your headset!” Guy snapped and Hal disappeared out of the conversation.
Marc hit the end of the Clemente Bridge, turned hard onto General Robinson Street and flew down it. Three Rivers Stadium loomed straight ahead, a great concrete donut on the North Shore. It been scheduled to be torn down months before the first Startup to make way for two stadiums dedicated to football and baseball. Since all the professional sport teams had fled the city, it had sat abandoned for years. If Yumiko actually got the namazu onto the vast playing field, it would be like shooting fish in a bucket. Giant electric fish.
Only Jane had no clue how they were going to get the namazu into the stadium.
“Keeper, is there an entrance large enough for the targets inside?”
“I-I-I have no idea. Beater One?”
“If it’s a normal stadium, it should,” Widget babbled. “Back in the States, they have these monster truck rallies at stadiums all the time. I don’t understand the concept but people like them. And if they can drive jacked up pickup trucks into the stadiums, there has to a monster-size entrance somewhere. The question is: where. Where? Where? There! It’s in the back, opposite of the River Front Entrance.”
Yumiko was darting in and out of sight as she led the monsters out of downtown. Jane could barely keep track of her despite the massive black wingspan. The tengu needed to stay aloft, away from the arcing electricity from the namazu, while keeping hidden from any snipers. Yumiko used what little cover the Fort Duquesne Bridge afforded as the five remaining monsters lumbered across the top deck. It was only a thousand feet but the on-ramp and off-ramp easily doubled the distance.
From Jane’s position, it certainly looked like they were all hurtling toward the same point, but it was difficult to be sure. She wanted to believe that Yumiko had realized that they were on the same side. It would be dangerous to assume that they were now trusted allies. The tengu woman could be leading Jane into a trap.
Widget was right about the vehicle entrance. There was a massive steel garage door protecting a tunnel that would have allowed a tractor-trailer to drive onto the playing field. Jane wasted a dozen bullets to shoot it into shreds. Marc smashed into the weakened barrier. The door caved and they drove down the short corridor to a second door. They downed that one. Beyond it was the weed-choked playing field.
Jane swiveled in the gunner’s chair, aiming back down the tunnel. She could see across the river to the first floor of Gateway towers. No. She couldn’t simply open fire while the namazu were bottlenecked in the tunnel.
“Do we have time to film a pass of the stadium?” Taggart broke his silence.
“Chaser One, how close are the targets?” Jane asked.
“You’ve got two minutes, tops,” Guy reported from Mount Washington. “We’ve lost sight of you.”
“Understood.”
They plowed through the tall weeds to the fifty-yard line. Taggart scrambled out of the Humvee and did a quick pan of the silent, abandoned stadium. The empty seats. The shadows heavy on the eastern end of the field. The slice of sunlight just touching the top lip of the western Rim. They sat in the silence and let him film despite the fact that their instincts were screaming for them to run. They needed film clips like this one to tie together all the confusing action pieces to make an understandable narrative. Taggart understood what would convey the desperation of their situation more than Jane, just as Earth-born Widget knew the general layout of stadiums when Duff did not.
“Backup camera three is out,” Nigel reported.
“I’ll check it after I reload.” Geoffrey shifted the big ammo cases around and fed a new chain up into the gun.
Jane kept aimed at the tunnel, heart thudding at the knowledge that they were unarmed until Geoffrey finished reloading.
“Seeker!” Guy cried from his advantage point. “You’ve got incoming!”
“Let’s go,” Jane said.
Taggart slid back into the Humvee.
Outside the stadium, there was the trill of the monster call. Yumiko flashed overhead; a rustle of black wings and then nothing. From some hiding space within the stadium itself, she blew the call again. The five namazu roared in answer, the noise echoing up the entrance tunnel.
“Get us room to maneuver,” Jane said.
Marc grunted. There wasn’t going to be a lot of spare area once the playing field was filled up with giant monsters throwing lightning.
The namazu lumbered down the tunnel faster than she expected. Electricity crawled along the seats near the entrance, flashing brilliance in the still pale morning sunlight. It startled a flock of pigeons that winged upwards. One vanished in a sudden puff of feathers.
Jane held her fire; she didn’t want to block the tunnel with a dead body.
The beasts rushed toward the Humvee, spreading out as they came down the field.
Jane opened fire. She focused on the far right, creating an escape path. The monster flailed under the rain of bullets. “Come on, die! Die!”
She couldn’t tell if it was completely dead but she switched to the second monster. “Move!” She shouted over the thunder of the cannon.
Marc sped toward the opening she made even as the left-most monster closed on the goal end. The other two split up, moving to cut them off even as the third gave chase.
“Left,” Geoffrey muttered as they raced directly at one. “Left! Leftleftleftleft.”
“Shut up!” Marc jerked the wheel right.
They dodged the namazu’s head and Jane strafed down its flank as they passed the long body. The other lunged at them. It slammed into the Humvee, making it tip. Electricity arced and crackled around them.
“Don’t roll us!” Jane fought gravity.
“Kill it then!” Marc shouted.
It snapped at Marc, smashing his window.
She opened fire without thinking of anything but her little brother. The recoil tipped them the rest of the way over. The Humvee hit hard on its side. They plowed through the deep weeds.
“Jane!” Geoffrey slapped her safety belt buckle and jerked her out of the gunner’s seat.
“Oh, damn, Bertha!” Jane cried.
“Forget Bertha!” Geoffrey shouted.
“Fire in the hole!” Marc shouted.
They covered their ears and ducked their heads.
There was a roar of noise as a flashbang went off.
Taggart cried out in surprise.
Jane’s heart flipped. Oh God, if he was stunned and blinded the monsters were going to kill him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Taggart called. “I just forgot your family owns stock in that company.”
The Humvee lurched as the blinded namazu slammed against it. They were grounded; they had to get out before its electricity could strike them.
“Go!” Jane shouted.
They scrambled out of the Humvee. She must have killed the namazu that tipped the Humvee. It wasn’t moving. The remaining beast was reeling from the flashbang.
“Get to the upper levels.” She led the way across the field toward the high wall surrounding the field. Of course both her brothers wanted to cover their retreat. “Move it!”
The namazu roared. It came crashing through the weeds toward them. She hit the wall first and scrambled over it. All instincts were screaming for her to stop and make sure the others got to safety. The hard truth was that her best chance of protecting them was to kill the monster.
She turned, swinging her rifle off her back and up to her shoulder. It was heart-stoppingly close to Marc and Taggart. Losing something makes it suddenly clear that it’s very important to you.
“D
on’t think of that now,” she whispered. She sighted on the namazu’s small beady eyes, held her breath, and pulled the trigger.
The crack of the rifle was weirdly comforting. The beast staggered and then slowly crumbled.
The silence was surreal.
“Okay,” she said to fill the silence. “That’s a wrap.”
* * *
The EIA officer in charge was a big, square-jawed idiot from Eastern Europe. His nametag identified him as Lieutenant Juhan Kukk. He spoke with a heavy accent and lapsed into his own language when addressing his men. He quickly proved that in addition to being a newcomer to Pittsburgh he was both racist and sexist. He ignored Jane because she was a woman and Taggart because he wasn’t white enough. He focused all questions and demands at Geoffrey. Jane really wanted to punch him but kept her fists close to her side.
At least the idiot didn’t try to take Taggart’s camera. He did take all their weapons and had Marc handcuffed after failing to stare down her younger brother.
Worse, Sparrow appeared with sekasha in tow. With elves in attendance, Jane didn’t dare lie but the one person she didn’t want to tell the truth to was Sparrow. Not with the steely-eyed sekasha at her back.
Elves weren’t gender-biased. The female elf knew Jane was the one to deal with. The focus was unnerving. The knowledge that Sparrow could order the sekasha to kill them fluttered fear through Jane. It was one thing to subject her younger brothers to the slow grind of the human legal system, another to expose them to the elves’ swift justice.
“Where did you get this?” Sparrow held up the gossamer call.
The question was in English but Jane answered in Elvish, hoping that any oddity of her story would be discounted as a lack of fluency. Jane cluttered up the story, hiding the truth with other truths. “There was an oni calling the monsters into the city with a whistle. He was making them attack Bowman—the police officer—he’s married to our cousin. The daughter of our mother’s aunt. They’re going to have a baby. The oni was on the roof of the PPG building. My people shot at him, trying to stop him before the monsters killed our cousin’s husband. He fell from the roof.”
She stopped there, leaving it to seem as if they’d gotten the oni’s whistle.
If Sparrow had given the oni the gossamer call, she would realize that Nigel’s instrument didn’t match the oni’s. She wouldn’t be able to prove it without exposing herself. It was a dangerous game of bluff poker.
Sparrow studied her with maddening calm. The female was like some snow queen, dressed in a tight frosty-blue fairy-silk gown and blond hair braided with ribbons and flowers. What was going on behind that beautiful exterior? This female had tried to murder Windwolf and most likely had been behind Tinker’s kidnapping. Yet she stood unconcerned among the deadly sekasha. She had to be very good at this game.
Sparrow flicked a hand to indicate Bertha. The EIA had righted the Humvee. The cannon looked undamaged. “Where did you get this weapon?”
“My father left it to his children. I do not know where he got it. He was afraid that a wyvern or a dragon might attack the city while Wolf Who Rules was not nearby.”
Kukk’s bigotry meant he wasn’t happy that the elves had taken over the conversation. “It doesn’t matter how they got it, it’s illegal. The treaty states that individuals can’t import heavy weaponry onto Elfhome.”
“I didn’t import it,” Jane stated calmly as she could.
Kukk plowed on with the charges. “It’s against city ordinances to fire weapons within a hundred and fifty yards of any residential structures. Our downtown headquarters looks like Swiss cheese. There’s a dead man—who may or may not be oni—splattered on the sidewalk.”
If this idiot got her brothers killed, Jane would make sure he was dead before she went down. “What does it matter if he was an oni or a human or an elf? He was calling the monsters into Market Square. What other reason would he be on the rooftop of that building before dawn?”
“Why were you there?” Sparrow countered.
“We’d promised Director Maynard to kill the monsters. When we heard the report that our cousin’s husband was pinned, we rushed to save him.”
Sparrow pulled out more damning evidence. “You were at the hospital when the oni prisoner escaped.”
The sekasha’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Jane realized that the conversation served no purpose except to sway the holy warriors into acting. If that was the game that Sparrow wanted to play, then Jane could too. In fact, as a TV show producer, she could play it very well. This was, after all, media propaganda.
“Like we told Director Maynard, one of our people had been wounded by a saurus two days ago. His wounds became infected and we took him to be treated. The staff there told us about the tengu. The people of Earth have no idea what the elves are fighting. The only pictures of oni are dead ones. If the people of Earth are to help the elves protect their world, then they have to know what the elves are fighting. An interview with a human turned into a crow, her body twisted by magic, would have been compelling evidence against the oni. She’d stolen a scalpel and gotten free of her restraints before we arrived.”
“Hal Rogers set one of my men on fire,” Kukk complained.
“Hal set himself on fire earlier this week,” Jane pointed out. “He’s accident-prone. I normally don’t allow Hal access to anything that can start a fire because of it. Your man provided Hal the flammable materials. We put him out. He was relatively unharmed.”
“Relatively?” Kukk growled.
“It was an accident which Private Tapper was equally responsible for.” Jane came as close to lying as she dared. She was sure, though, that Hal couldn’t have started the fire without a lighter from the private. “We promised Director Maynard to hunt down and kill the monster. We’ve killed six. There might be more.” Sparrow’s face tightened and Jane knew that was the right track to take. “There was a nest with several hundred eggs at Sandcastle. We’re fairly sure there are two more nests. There could be as many as four more. Those need to be located and destroyed.”
“You have broken the treaty…” Sparrow started.
“If these humans were born in Pittsburgh,” the leader of the sekasha stated quietly, “then they have not broken the treaty.”
“I am the husepavua, Dark Harvest,” Sparrow said.
“And I’m Second of First Hand.” Dark Harvest cut her short. “We are at war. My decision stands. She and her younger brothers were born here. They are ‘natives’ of Elfhome. As such, they are allowed any weapon needed to defend their home.”
“That section refers only to the rights of elves,” Kukk said.
“If you believe that, then you have misunderstood the wording,” Dark Harvest said.
Jane gasped as she realized that traitorous Sparrow had most likely had a hand in translating the treaty into human law. Of course the oni would want the humans only lightly armed.
“Let them go,” Dark Harvest commanded.
“They broke multiple human laws,” Kukk stated.
“Idiotic laws.” Dark Harvest waved away Kukk’s objections. “Monsters do not cooperate and stay outside of the limit you stated. They had no choice. You will not punish them for this. Take off the restraints.”
* * *
They fled the North Side. After a stop at Market Square to film the dead namazu there, they headed to Mount Washington to meet up with the production trucks. Jane was glad that Marc was driving; her mind was in a whirlwind. What did she really know about anything? What did the treaty really say—at least as far as the elves were concerned? How many Pittsburghers were actually oni? How many nasty surprises like the namazu did the oni have scattered in the abandoned corners of the city? She wasn’t even sure of things like how Maynard ended up as director of the EIA, which left the question of his loyalties dangerously unclear.
One thing was clear: the elves considered themselves to be at war and most of the humans in Pittsburgh didn’t realize it.
Taggart star
tled her by taking her hand. Apparently once you breached the hand-holding threshold, the door was always open for more. It felt good though in all the confusion to have something solid to cling to. He and Nigel were good people. She couldn’t have gotten Boo back or killed the namazu without them. Yet in less than sixty days, she was going to lose Taggart.
Unless she solved his visa problems.
“Marry me,” Jane whispered.
“What?” Taggart’s eyes went wide.
“If you marry me, you don’t need a visa to stay on Elfhome.”
His eyes went dark and sober. “If you don’t love me…”
“I think I do.” She squeezed his hand tightly. “It might take me a while to be sure, but we don’t have that time. I trust you. You’re a good man. I think you’re hands-down the sexiest guy I’ve ever laid eyes on. And you didn’t run screaming from my family. I think given time, I will come to love you more than anything in the universe. I’m willing to take the risk that it won’t work out if you are.”
He stared at her open-mouthed for a full minute.
“Well?” Jane wondered if maybe she should have waited until they weren’t covered in namazu blood and reeking of gun smoke.
He kissed her. He was just the right height so that they interlocked perfectly. Under the wonderfully soft fabric of his silk shirt, he was warm hard muscle. He kissed even better than he smelled, which was amazing.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jane said.
* * *
Her mother was going to be ecstatic. Her brothers probably would be relieved that she wasn’t marrying Hal. (They liked Hal but had no respect for the man.)
Hal.
She knew him as well as she knew her brothers. She had, however, no idea how he was going to react to the news. Would it be best to tell him immediately or wait—like until the day of the wedding—or maybe a few weeks afterwards?
On second thought, she was fairly sure he was going to lose it. Taggart was right; Hal loved her. Maybe if he hadn’t caught himself on fire the first day they met, things might have gone differently with them. Putting a man out immediately slotted him into the “younger brother” category, despite the fact he was ten years older than her. She didn’t want to think of herself as the shallow type of woman that only liked macho-looking men, but the fact that Hal came to shoulder-level on her had always led to embarrassing face-plant moments.