by Baen Books
"Oh freaking hell!" Jane cried. "Don't tell me you heard everything I said?"
"Okay. We won't." Hal pointed at the deli. "It's lunch time. Let's do food." He turned to Nigel. "This place has amazing food. Good as anything you'd find in New York."
"Gypsy wagons!" Nigel clapped his hands in delight. He'd attached his backup set of feet, so only the faint blood staining through his clean shirt remained as proof how close a call they'd had. "Oh, how charming."
"Are you okay?" Taggart asked.
Jane nodded mutely as tears started to burn in her eyes. Somehow last night had broken down her defenses around him and it left her emotionally fragile.
He carefully took the doll out of her hands. He brushed the ratty, dirty hair back from its impish smile.
"People used to ask if Boo was half-elf because she was so beautiful. She had hair was so pale blonde that it looked white, the bluest eyes and skin like china. When she was clean and still – which was usually only when we were at church or a wedding or something – she was like an angel that had fallen from heaven. But with us, most the time, she was half naked, muddy, and grinning. To me, she was just as impish as this doll. And her hair. Her hair would be this mass of untamable curls. When I fixed Helga for her, I made the hair just like Boo's."
"We'll find her," Taggart said.
Jane shook her head, taking back the doll. "I can't put you at risk."
Hal came back carrying biodegradable take-out containers that perfumed the parking lot with the smell of rice and pumpkin curry. "I say we film a show."
Jane smacked him.
"Ow! I mean it! Everyone in Pittsburgh knows PB&G. Even if you don't own a television, there are all those billboards from this spring. We just do our normal shtick."
"Shtick?" Jane echoed.
"Come in with cameras, walk all over the homeowner, and blow the hell out of their property."
Jane stared at him for a moment as she realized that he was right. Shy of the Viceroy and the director of the EIA, the various TV personalities were the most famous faces in Pittsburgh. Unlike some of them, like Chloe Polanski, Hal was well liked because people sensed that at his core, what Hal wanted more than anything, more than ratings, was to honestly save people. It was the main reason that Jane put up with his craziness. Despite the homeowner's misgivings and the chaos they caused, they kept the dangerous flora and fauna from killing countless people.
But would his fame actually protect him?
"I can't ask you…"
"You're not asking," Hal said. "This is my plan and I'm quite proud of it."
"I think it’s a good plan," Nigel said.
She glanced at Taggart and he gave a sheepish grin as he nodded.
Oh god, this was what she was most afraid of: she was outnumbered by crazy men. Vague plans to call her little brothers evaporated as she started thinking of damage control. The fewer crazy men she needed to corral, the less chance of something going wrong. Hopefully.
#
Pittsburgh was full of forgotten corners. It was nearly two thousand square miles of space transported to Elfhome. For every handful of empty houses there was an empty quickie mart, gas station, dry cleaner, Starbucks and McDonalds. And with every failed business, there came another handful of empty houses. Desolation grew like a cancer. Homestead had been home of the famous steel mill, a fairly new mall, the sprawling water park of Sandcastle and sixteen hundred households. When she was little, there had been a strip of houses clustered around West Street, eking off a living from the still open Sandcastle. When the park closed, the neighborhood went under.
The entrance of the park looked no different from all the abandoned buildings that they'd passed coming in. Jane's heart sank. The squatters must have moved out after Grandma Gertie's tribe descended on them.
"What is it?" Taggart's question made her realize she had sworn softly.
"It's empty," she said.
"How can you tell?"
"There's no takens."
"Takens?"
"Pittsburghers do stuff to show that a building is taken. Set up a planter with flowers. Paint the door Wind Clan blue. Put out a welcome mat. Install an obvious doorbell. Or put up a new mailbox, even if they can't get the mail delivered. It keeps other people from trying to move into their space."
"What if they don't want people to know they're here?" Taggart said. "They've got a little girl they've kidnapped and god knows what else. They don't want to be noticed."
He had a point.
On the theory that Hal was the recognizable one, he got out and pushed open the gate. It swung easily and silently open. Beyond them was the massive parking lot, cracked and weed choked. The tall waterslides towered on the other side like twisted dreams.
Everyone but Nigel cautiously got out of the truck. Silence reigned, broken only by the calls of crows.
Jane shouldered a backpack stuffed with every tool she imagined she might need for a jail breakout. She hefted the big light reflector like a shield while her heart hammered in her chest. There was a tiny little voice deep inside her that she currently was ignoring. It whispered that the only reason she was letting the men talk her into this was because she was being selfish. She was supposed to be the smart, level-headed one that knew when it was time to ditch and run.
Taggart glanced at her and read her face. "Oh, you can't back out now." Taggart brandished his camera like a weapon. "You promised us."
She didn't remember making any promises. In fact, that was so unlikely that she knew he was lying. It felt weirdly better, though, to know control had slipped from her hands, and with it, responsibility.
Hal took his place out in front, his pith helmet on, and his grab-stick tucked under his arm like a riding crop. He was grinning hugely, like he did just before he got to blow things up. Probably because explosives were well in the realm of likely outcome of their rescue attempt.
Chesty stood at her side in heel. The elfhound scanned the lot with open suspicion, which meant they weren't as alone as they seemed.
They went through an over-the-top mime of setting up to shoot. Don't mind us, we're harmless.
Hal, however, seemed slightly confused what their real mission was. "Should I intro as PB&G or Chased by Monsters?"
Jane bit down on the automatic "We're not actually filming!" No need to announce that to anyone who might have very sharp ears. Besides, she was fairly certain that Taggart was filming – in fact probably would keep filming even if gunshots and explosions occurred. "Do both. Depending on what we get, we'll use the video for one show or other."
"Welcome to Pittsburgh Lawn and Garden. I'm your host, Hal Rogers." Hal paused and straightened nervously. "Welcome to Chased by Monsters. I'm Hal Rogers." He half-turned, giving the camera his handsome profile, the raccoon mask of bruising covered up with half a bottle of concealer. "And this..." He waved a hand at the twin square towers that made up the front entrance. The landlocked builders had tried to combine Cape Cod, lighthouse and castle themes for the gatehouse and utterly failed. "This is Sandcastle: an eighty-seven acre water park with fourteen water slides and multiple swimming pools located on the banks of the Monongahela River. Opened in 1989, it bravely continued operating even after it found itself on Elfhome. It closed its doors…" Hal paused to shove open the accordion steel gate stretched between the two towers. "…in 2020 after a sudden outbreak of deadly Elfhome water creatures in its water supply. Despite heavy chlorination and an extensive filtering system, creatures such as river plankton, elf shrimp, and water fairies took over."
And in they went.
No one came forward to stop them. The place looked completely deserted. Jagger bushes grew waist high in every inch of lawn and weeds choked the cracks in the cement sidewalks. Chesty nearly quivered at her side, nostrils flared, jerking his head from one target to another. They were being watched by half a dozen things that Chesty considered dangerous.
So Boo's kidnappers wanted to pretend that Sandcastle was deserted? Fine. Ja
ne and her crew would play ignorant.
Hal marched forward a dozen feet, pointing out the park's three large pools and the fact that the river lay just feet beyond. Oddly the pools had been covered by some kind of odd-looking tarps.
"Camo netting," Taggart murmured.
More evidence that someone was hiding something. Behind the buildings that lined the boardwalk, Dragon's Den lay dismantled by Grandma Gertie, the massive statue at the slide's heart missing. All that remained was the two stories of open wooden stairs leading to the now vanished launch point. Considering how big the dragon was, Gertie must have had dozens of people with her. It was little wonder they could come in and go without a fight. But why hadn't Boo just gone with them? Hidden herself in the truck instead of the doll?
Eighty-seven acres of possible hiding spaces.
"What monster do we track today?" Hal said as he paused at the decision point. Go into the gift shop? The park offices? Head for the buildings closer to the river or go on to the boardwalk? "Indeed that is the question: what is out there?"
Hal pointed out at the open river on the other side of the mushroom pool. Hopefully he could keep attention away from what Jane was doing. "The other day we spotted a creature never seen before in Pittsburgh, a massive river reptile generating a storm of electrical discharge. It had been described by one of our viewers as a Loch Ness monster."
While Hal gestured and info dumped about the river monster, Jane leaned the reflector against the wall and pulled out a Ziploc baggie. The first thing that had gone into their new freezer were several pieces of Boo's clothing to be used by scent dogs. They'd used most that first summer, but she'd found one still buried at the bottom. One last chance to find her baby sister.
"A long standing theory has been that the Loch Ness is a plesiosauria, which is a marine reptile that first appeared during the early Jurassic period and thought to be now extinct. These massive predators reached lengths of forty to fifty feet in length. What we witnessed the other night, though, seems to classify the Pittsburgh Nessie as a type of electric eel."
She pressed the cloth to Chesty's nose. "Seek. Seek."
Chesty whuffed in the scent. Dropping his head, he started to track.
"Electric eels get their names because they can generate up to six hundred volts of electricity." Hal managed to make his stroll forward, matching Chesty's progress, seem totally natural without losing track of the information he was presenting. "This powerful amount of voltage is five times the normal output of a household outlet and can easily kill a man. Those, however, are Earth's electric eels. The largest of these only reach about seven feet in length. How much voltage could a creature that is fifty feet long generate? The possibilities are staggering!"
Chesty headed to the boardwalk that once was lined with food stands with names that made it clear what they sold: Potato Patch, Uncle Tony's Pizza, Philly, Healthy Hut. The eateries had steel grates rolled down to cover their storefronts. Chesty passed the rows of locker rentals and went still at the first steel grate cover. Jane knelt beside the grate and gave it an experimental tug. It rose up an inch on well-oiled tracks. There was a large room beyond, dimly lit by celestial windows.
"We're going in." Jane lifted the grate two feet. Chesty crawled under and she wriggled in after him and let the door close behind her.
At one time, the place had been a café. Chesty bee-lined through overturned tables and broken chairs to the swinging doors into the kitchen full of large stainless steel appliances.
There was a startled squeak and someone ducked around one of the counters. The move, however, had backed the person into a corner. The girl stared at Jane and Chesty with eyes wide, hair a wild tangled bloom of unruly white blonde curls.
"Boo!"
"Jane!" Boo skittered away from her outstretched hand, ducking through the shelving under the counter. "Go away!"
"Boo, I'm here to take you home!"
"They'll kill you if they find you here!"
"Who?" Because now that Jane found her baby sister, she wanted to know whom she was going to kill.
"Lord Tomtom's warriors."
"Who?"
"You have to go!"
"Carla Marie Kryskill, come here now!"
"Jane!" It was the little girl whine she remembered so well. "I can't leave Joey! He's my responsibility."
"Fine, we'll take Joey too." Who the hell was this Joey? Jane couldn't remember ever hearing of a missing "Joey." Maybe it wasn't another kid.
"They have him in a spell so he can't be found and he's chained."
"We'll get him out. Where is he?"
Boo stared at her for a long moment as if staring into her soul. After seven years, did she still have the ability to trust anyone?
"I promise," Jane whispered. "We will not leave without the both of you. Okay? Semper Fi. Leave no man behind."
Boo's eyes filled with tears and she gave a tiny nod.
"Take me to Joey."
Originally built as a row of isolated shotgun-style buildings, Boo's capturers had cut doors between the restaurants and built up walls until the structures were one big maze. In a dim back room, they found a little black haired boy, chained by one foot, inside a gleaming hologramlike spell. Jane stared at shimmering lines of power that wove from floor to matching design in the ceiling, creating a cage out of nothing.
She knew nothing about spells except they were much like lamps – they needed a power supply and a continuous loop to function correctly. In theory, breaking the circuit turned off the spell. She tapped the bar quickly. It felt as cold and hard as steel but it looked no more solid than light beamed through smoke.
"What's going on?" The little boy sounded very American. He looked like a kindergartener. "Who are you?"
"This is Jane." Boo reached through the bars to lace fingers with him. "She's came! She's here to save us. Both of us."
Jane dug frantically through her backpack. "Taggart, I found them. I'm going to kick the beehive to get them free. Get ready to move fast."
"Okay." Taggart seemed dubious at the wisdom of this.
She took out the bolt cutter and laid it aside where she could find it quickly. Once she started, they'd probably only have minutes to get to safety. She found the foam package of whack-a-moles. They'd developed the little explosives to force vespers out of their holes so they could be filmed. They worked on the same principle as a nail gun, driving a spike straight down into hard packed ground. She never tried them on concrete; hopefully they wouldn't explode like a pipe bomb instead.
"Here." She passed the light reflector into the cage. "Joey, hold this up like a shield. Boo, get behind that counter."
She used clay to create a seal between the explosives' barrel and the concrete over the spell etchings.
"Fire in the hole!" The explosion was deafening in the small room. Thankfully, though, the bars of the cage vanished.
"Jane! Incoming!" Taggart shouted. The grate rattled up back at the café's entrance. There was the loud whistle of the monster call. As the grate clattered down and gunfire broke out, there was a distant roar of the river monster.
Swearing, Jane snatched up the bolt cutter and scrambled quickly to Joey. The chain was stupidly short, only a few inches between a loop on the floor and the shackle around his ankle. The metal cuff had chaffed him raw and bleeding. She'd thought that there was something horribly wrong with his foot until she realized that it wasn't deformed. He had a bird's foot. Instead of a human foot with five little toes, he had a bird's with four scale-covered talons. Three long talons faced forward. A shortened fourth splayed out in place of a heel. Not as long as a true crow's foot, but long enough to allow him to grip a branch solidly with his foot.
Jane gasped as the image of Tinker's kidnapping played out in her mind's eye. The boy was a tengu. Boo had been taken by oni? The oni had been in Pittsburgh all these years? How many of the missing children – thought dead of jumpfish and strangle vines just like Boo – had the oni taken?
"Jane! They're coming!" Boo tugged at her arm. "Just go away. They won't hurt us; they need us alive. They want the call for the tengu flock! They need the blood of the Chosen to take control of the flock."
Jane's breath caught in her chest as she saw for the first time Boo's feet. The ghost white scales of her talons that matched her pale hair. Jane looked up into Boo's face. Her baby sister's face. Her baby sister's blue eyes.
"What did they do to you?" Jane cried.
Hurt filled Boo's face. "Just go away!"
"We're all going, now shut up," Jane snapped and cut through the chain.
"Jane?" Hal shouted over whistle blast and gunfire.
"Over here!" Jane started to unload her backpack of weapons.
A minute later, Taggart found them. "That door won't hold for long. Do you have any weapons?"
Jane laughed, checking the clip and handing him a pistol. "Two of my grandparents were Marines. The third was a moonshiner. The other was a part of the local mafia. Do the math."
"You've got guns. Lots of guns."
"My family all but bleeds bullets." Jane took out two more pistols. She held the little twenty-two out to Boo. "You remember how to use these?"
"Don't point it at anyone you don’t want to kill." Boo took the gun. "Which is a lot of people right now. Aim down the barrel, hold your breath, squeeze."
"Good girl."
There was a roar, this time sounding far too close, and the whole building shook as if hit by a freight train.
"Where's the backdoor?" When Boo only stared at her in horror, Jane groaned. "Please tell me there's back door."
Boo shook her head. "They're nailed shut. That's the only door in."
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Jane scanned the room. What should they do? She realized that there were too few of them. "Where's Hal?"
There was a sudden explosion from the hallway beyond the cage room.
"I've made us a door!" Hal called.
"Hal! Damn it, how many times have I told you to warn people before you blow things up?"
They went out the hole that Hal had blown through the back wall. A back service alley ran the length of the boardwalk, lined with boarded up loading docks. Electricity was crawling over the building like a lightning storm had been anchored to the storefront. They ran toward the truck that seemed a million miles away.