Elfhome-ARC

by Wen Spencer

  Somehow she doubted that Rustle had his pockets stuffed with popcorn. Where was it coming from? An iPod landed next to the fluffy kernels, trailing ear buds that floated down and settled up against the brilliant shell. The color of the spell changed infinitesimally, as pinpoints of blues and greens flared beside the ear buds.

  Oilcan said that Rustle had been losing things right and left, including the expensive mpeg player. The male had been inconsolable over the loss and had torn the enclave apart looking for it. What if things had been shifting out of phase all this time—little things—like popcorn?

  And with more magic did Rustle just shift out of phase?

  “Tink!” Blue Sky cried. “Is he all right? What’s happening to him?”

  “I’m canceling the spell.” She could recast it once she was sure he was fine.

  “Inner breach,” Pixel announced. “South corridor, lone armed intruder.”

  How did anyone get into the hotel without being detected? Oh gods, she should have known her shadow would be able to walk through all her defenses.

  Tinker backpedaled from the active spell, waving a hand toward the main doors into the casting room. “We’ve got incoming! Pixel, system status?”

  “Twenty-five percent monitor failure detected.”

  Her shadow had blasted a hole in her defense. Was there a wave of oni following close behind?

  Tinker tapped the spell stones and cast a quick scry.

  Oni were pouring down Grand Avenue toward the hotel.

  Part One of her plan was working. She just really expected more of a warning.

  “Pixel, sticks and stones, words will always hurt.”

  “Broadcasting.”

  Tinker shouted the command word for the spells scattered across the island. Her voice, amplified by dozens of hidden speakers, echoed up the river valley. There was a deep cough as the blast spell fired, and then a deep roar as flame engulfed everything.

  “Incoming: rocket,” Pixel announced. “Impact in ten seconds. Nine. Eight…”

  She snapped up a shield wall between her people and the hallway just as a rocket blasted away the door. Flames blossomed in a deafening roar. The kids all shrieked counterpoint.

  The children were not part of the battle plan—beyond a vague idea that they would serve as bait. She needed to get them out of the war zone somehow—all of them—and that included Rustle.

  Tinker shouted out the cancelation command of the spell on Rustle. Her voice echoed up all around, still broadcasted over the hidden speakers. The spell continued to blaze with impossible brightness. “Oh fuck!”

  “What’s wrong, little princess?” An electronically scrambled voice mocked her from down the now darkened hallway. “Bite off a little more than you can chew?”

  So they both needed time. Her shadow hadn’t expected her to be able to block that attack—and she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t realized her old numbering system allowed her to shortcut to spells she had memorized as a child.

  It was a race now, but a race to what? What did her shadow need time for?

  “Not as much as you have, Chloe!” Tinker shouted back, thinking frantically. She needed to get Rustle out of the spell and block whatever Chloe was about to throw at her. “I know it’s you. A pigtailed little girl, wearing pretty dresses, pretending not to be the monster that you really are! Nice cover, while it lasted. Too bad it’s over.”

  “You were born on this island and you’re going to die on it.” Chloe used her own voice this time.

  “Actually I was born at Mercy Hospital!” Tinker shouted back. “And if you were sure I was going to die here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation! You only talk when things don’t go as planned; when I’ve done something just so off the wall that even you couldn’t see it coming. I’ve figured something out about you: if you don’t understand what I’m doing, you can’t stop me.”

  “What’s so hard to figure out? You just lost the child and you have no idea how to get him back.”

  Tinker hated it when the bad guy was right.

  “No, I haven’t lost him.” Just temporarily misplaced him. Hopefully. The spell was out of phase, but was reacting to music from the iPod. The dragon’s cast their spells via their mane. It was possible that the vibrating filaments set up harmonics that controlled their ability to phase in and out. Change the frequency and you can key into another universe.

  When she applied magic to Rustle, she triggered his ability to step into another world. Oilcan was just going to kill Tinker. All she’d had to do was keep the kids safe…

  And with that, Tinker realized why Chloe was there. What the whole mess was about. The Skin Clan had bred the kids, but they didn’t know how to “use” the kids. It was nearly as complicated as Oilcan and her trying to figure out the Spell Stones without knowing of their existence. The Skin Clan might have several hundred children tucked in the wings back in Easternlands, but no way to experiment on them safely.

  But Tinker was a clever, clever little tool. You just had to be careful when applying her to any puzzle that she doesn’t figure out what you’re doing…

  Close by, a Stone Clan shield flared across Tinker’s senses. One of the domana was about to join the battle. Since Tinker hadn’t passed out invitations, they were here on Chloe’s invite list, most likely under “secondary distraction.” If Tinker had to guess, it was Iron Mace closing fast.

  “Get her!” Tinker dropped her shield and cast a force strike at the hallway to nuke it closed behind Chloe. “She’s going to try and run! Stop her!”

  The collection of warriors let loose a thunderous volley of rifles down the darkened hallway. Note for future reference: elves will translate “stop her” to “try and kill the bitch.”

  Try was the key word as Chloe came bounding down the hallway, twin daggers in hand, and dodging like a hyperactive ninja. All pretense of being human was gone; she snaked past Cloudwalker and Rainlily like they were standing still and mowed her way into the laedin.

  Tinker backpedalled. This was going to be one of those times where it was a pain to be only five feet tall. She couldn’t unleash her attack spells without hitting her own people, which was probably why Chloe had closed on the warriors. If she tried to protect her people, they couldn’t attack Chloe. Iron Mace was incoming at a fast walk, destruction flaring on her magic sense, followed by the rumble of nearing explosions. Chloe only had to survive until Iron Mace smashed his way into the casting room, and then she could flee in the chaos.

  “Get the children out!” Tinker yelled at the still-standing laedin to get them out of the way.

  She snapped up her shield and shifted to protect laedin’s retreat with the children. Pony nodded to her as she stopped into the doorway, blocking the only way out of the casting room. He and Stormsong closed on Chloe, ejae drawn, their sekasha shields glimmering Wind Clan blue.

  It was like they had spent weeks choreographing the fight. Her Hand attacked, swinging furiously, only avoiding each other because of their years of practice together. Chloe ducked and whirled and spun, dodging every blow.

  Think, Tinker, think. All you have to do is out-smart this bitch, and you know you can.

  There was a closer roar of destruction that boomed through the timbers of the old building.

  “Lobby door, breached.” Pixel reported.

  She was running out of time to be brilliant. She’d have to settle for just devious.

  “Blue!” she called.

  “Tink?” The brave little idiot was right behind her.

  “Get this thing off me.” She tugged at the bandage that strapped her arm.

  There was a lifesaving ring on the wall beside her. Tinker shifted forward slightly and jerked it off the wall. Kneeling in place, she sketched a spell quickly on stiff foam. She dropped her shield and flung the ring. Pain flared up her arm as the motion tortured the fragile knits in her bones.

  Chloe laughed as she ducked. “Wake up princess, even your half-breed can’t hit me!”

/>   The lifesaver skidded across the room and careened into the pool supplies.

  Tinker snapped up her shield between her Hand and shouted the command word.

  The lifesaver exploded right on top of the algaecide. A moment later the chemical exploded with a massive fireball.

  Thank god, Chloe apparently failed chemistry.

  44: Iron Mace

  Oilcan watched as Neville Island erupted. Flame and smoke billowed upwards. In that one thunderous moment, the oni army descending on his childhood home vanished.

  Tinker!

  Beside him, Tommy breathed a curse. “You know, for someone so small, your cousin is freaking destructive.”

  Oilcan forced himself to nod. The smoke parted and the hotel was still standing. “Yeah, she is.” Godzilla-like.

  The sound of gunfire continued from inside the hotel. There was a flare of magic on Grand Avenue, and Oilcan realized that a Stone Clan domana was wading into the fight. He scanned down the street until he spotted Iron Mace heading for the hotel, left hand holding a shield while flicking oni out of his way with his right. In the distance was a black cloud of tengu winging their way to Neville Island but they couldn’t take on the domana.

  “Damn him.” Oilcan turned his hoverbike toward the steep cliff. “No time to follow the roads.”

  Tommy eyed the steep drop-off and muttered a curse.

  They dropped down the cliff, nearly in free-fall, skipping off projections to slow their descent, and then raced flat out across the steel catwalk above the sluicegates of Emsworth’s dam. Jump fish leapt in their wake, reacting too late to their darting shadows.

  “You sure your cousin doesn’t have more bombs planted?” Tommy shouted as they gunned down Grand Avenue in Iron Mace’s wake.

  “She doesn’t have the patience for planning more than one level of backup defenses. She’s all or nothing.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like her.”

  Which meant she probably hadn’t held back anything to deal with Iron Mace. With a broken arm, there was no way she could take the male. As they raced toward the hotel, he could feel Tinker and the bright motes of her sekasha desperately fighting something at close quarters in the casting room. Iron Mace blasted open the lobby doors, now less than a hundred feet from Tinker.

  Oilcan gunned his hoverbike, darted along side of the hotel to smashed through the window into the ballroom. Momentum slid him across muddy marble floor to door less opening. Leaping from his bike, he stepped out into the dim hallway and snapped up a shield between him and Iron Mace.

  “You!” Iron Mace rocked back in surprise. “I killed you.”

  “ Like you killed Amaranth?”

  Iron Mace sneered, all pretense of being a grieving brother abandoned. “My baby sister had the decency to stay dead. I understand your mother knew the trick. If I’m lucky, it’s a female trait.”

  Oilcan squared off behind his shield. “I’m not going to let you hurt my cousin.”

  Iron Mace laughed. “Go ahead and bark, little mutt puppy. What Forge taught you doesn’t mean you can bite.”

  “I already could bite!” Oilcan took out the floor supports in the hotel’s nice deep basement and dropped four stories of hotel on top of him. Half a lifetime of good memories—and one surprised domana—thundered down into the sudden hole. Oilcan knew it wouldn’t hurt Iron Mace, but he figured it piss him off enough to forget about Tinker. He took off running, keeping his shield up as he ran.

  Maybe if Oilcan hadn’t spent his childhood playing lab assistant to a mad scientist determined to bend the hell out of reality, he might be clueless to how to hurt Iron Mace behind his shield. It was just a matter of hitting the male fast and hard with the right series of spells.

  Out in the parking lot, Oilcan snapped through a set of spells. Alone they were utilitarian and innocuous; combined by a mad scientist, they reduced asphalt to a frictionless surface. It had taken all three of them days to copy over the glyphs and spell rings to convert a driveway to a hockey rink. The massive power of the Spells Stones transformed hotel’s expansive parking lot to glassy sheen in the matter of seconds.

  The broken rubble of the hotel rumbled, heaved, shuddered, and then exploded upward, disgorging Iron Mace in a roil of dust.

  “Lying brat!” Iron Mace shouted. “You said you didn’t know your esva.”

  “I just need to know physics!” Tinker had explained about the strength of domana shields, how they redirected kinetic energy around the caster and were nearly impenetrable. Oilcan had been paying attention when his grandfather taught him physics. He just rarely had any need to apply the principles. “This is all science.”

  And science was all about experimentation. Taking out the floor supports told him that he could control the ground under Iron Mace’s feet. He pulled—yanking the elf onto the frictionless parking lot. Still pulling, he added his momentum to Iron Mace by running forward, hitting the edge of the shining surface and slid.

  In a frictionless environment, things in motion, stayed in motion—including elves.

  They slide fast toward at each. Oilcan tried a blast against Iron Mace’s shield. The force was redirected without changing Iron Mace’s angle of motion. Iron Mace twisted as they passed each other like two freight trains, and blasted the ground ahead of Oilcan. A great crater appeared.

  Oilcan ignored the oncoming disaster to keep Iron Mace focused tightly on him and not on where he was heading. A childhood of racing go-karts on the island had taught Oilcan to never lose track of the river’s edge. It was a lesson Iron Mace learned the hard way when he flew off the end of the parking lot and out over the water. Like a flat stone, he skipped three times before sinking.

  It turned out that tumbling into a massive crater at twenty miles per hour wasn’t painful when Oilcan had his shield spell up. He scrambled quickly back up to the edge of the crater. Iron Mace’s shield was still active under the muddy water, drifting downriver like a massive hamster ball. It was possible that the elf could save himself but he was against a ticking clock—there was only so much air trapped in the shell with him. Iron Mace cast a scry spell. The river and its currents were mapped out, bisected by the Emsworth Dam and the powerful undertow beyond it.

  “Yes, bastard,” Oilcan whispered. “You need to get out before you hit that.”

  The current was going to sweep Iron Mace across the river and up against the high walls of the lock on the far bank. Annoyingly, there was even a ladder there for someone to scramble up from a boat. It would be impossible for a human to climb it with one hand, but an elf’s longer reach meant Iron Mace could do it and maintain his shield.

  Oilcan slid to edge of the parking lot and took off running for the dam. Tommy was right about needing the strength to do the hard thing because this fight was to the death. Iron Mace had to kill Oilcan and anyone else that might know about what he’d done. He had dug a deep, deep hole and the only way out was to fill it with bodies. Oilcan had to be sure that the elf never got out of the river. He held close to the anger thrumming through him, hot and heady. So how did he kill this bastard?

  There was no way Iron Mace could go near the sluicegates without being swept over the dam. Beyond the gates was the dangerous undertow that would pin Iron Mace under water. The only safe way out was the ladder. It was the same heavy steel as the catwalk, bolted solid into the cement wall of the lock. If Oilcan hit it with a force strike, it would blast the entire ladder to shards.

  He could mark Iron Mace’s position by the circling jumpfish. Oilcan reached the end of the catwalk and scrambled down to the lock’s wall. At the top of the ladder, he cocked his fingers, brought his hand to his mouth, and then paused. If he blasted the ladder now, Iron Mace might just find another way out of the water. As long as the male maintained his shield, he was safe to find another way. If Oilcan waited and cast the spell while Iron Mace was holding onto the ladder…

  The result would be awful and utterly necessary. It went against everything Oilcan tried to be, but he wou
ldn’t have a second chance to take Iron Mace while vulnerable. So he waited, hating himself, trying to hold tight to his anger. This male had attacked him in his home. Had left his kids defenseless. Had come to Neville Island to kill Tinker.

  The last brought the rage he needed.

  Iron Mace surged up out of the water and caught hold of the lowest rung. Jumpfish were bouncing off the elf’s shield, trying to snatch him off the wall. Oilcan waited until male had heaved himself up, swearing and grunting with effort and got a foot unto the rung and grabbed the second rung tight.

  Oilcan tapped the Spell Stones. Iron Mace looked up, eyes going wide in surprise. Oilcan closed his fist tight in the force strike. Iron Mace’s hand and foot shattered along with the steel of the ladder. The male screamed, falling backwards, his shield vanishing as he flailed in pain, and the jumpfish took him.

  45: Impatience

  For reasons that weren’t clear to Tinker until much later, Oilcan, Tommy Chang, and Riki Shoji all showed up after all the fireworks were over.

  “Hey,” Oilcan called as he scrambled through the wreckage of what had been their home. She whimpered at the sight of him, his eyes and ears proof that he wasn’t human any more. He looked young and haunted, but at least he was alive. She caught hold of him and hugged him despite his efforts to check her for new cuts and bruises.

  “You had me worried with that last explosion.” His voice was his own, rough with emotion. “I’m sorry about the hotel.”

  She closed her eyes and focused on his voice and the hammering of his heart, like he had just run a race. “It’s just a thing. All things wear out eventually.”

  “Usually not so spectacularly,” he unknowing echoed her thoughts about Ginger Wine’s.

  She clutched him tighter, giggling. “Well, you’re finally showing the family destructive gene.”

  He head-butted her gently. “One occurrence doesn’t indicate a trait.”

  “We’ll see. Time will tell.” Tears filled her eyes as she realized that they had forever to see. How could something be in theory a good thing and yet feel so awful?