25: THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY
Liberty Avenue—for the whores who worked it—started at Market Square and ended at Penn Station. In reality, it stretched all the way out to Oakland, but the streetwalkers didn’t work beyond the train station. Near Market Square they could attract the off-world businessmen, diplomats, and EIA staff members on short-term assignment. It was high traffic, high profit, so the Chang stable claimed the best parts at that end. The Undefended, made up of illegal immigrants, drifted across the rest of the half-mile stretch.
The Undefended rarely complained of this because most of them, like Peanut Butter Pie, had a kink for male elves. It was the sole reason that many of them were on Elfhome. They could quote the Lord of the Rings movies and something called Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo. They shared candid pictures and fan artwork of Windwolf and his sekasha on their phones—some of the drawings were highly pornographic in nature. (Olivia was glad that Forest Moss had arrived in Pittsburgh after they lost contact with Earth as it greatly reduced the chances of her ever having to see artwork featuring him with random partners.)
The train station had been the only outpost of elves in the Downtown area before the war broke out. From what Olivia could piece together, the elves knew that humans never did anything for more than one or two centuries. Even the great civilizations like the Egyptians and Romans had shifted power bases, beliefs, and practices every hundred years or so. Sooner or later, the gate between the worlds would fail and everything stranded on Elfhome would become the elves’ responsibility to maintain. Because of that, the Wind Clan elves had been learning how to run and maintain the trains to the East Coast.
The Undefended would hang out near the train station, soliciting men until the elves came off duty. Once the royal marines started to arrive in Pittsburgh, it became a holy mecca for the women.
Penn Station was a beautiful century-old brick building with tons of tall arched windows. There was a massive rotunda in front of the entrance that the wagons would park under while waiting for incoming marines. Normally, the rotunda would be all lit up with warm yellow lamps so that it glowed golden at night, but the entire city was currently dark, shrouded in rain.
Olivia pulled under the dome, truck headlights gleaming off the entrance into the station proper.
Normally, the doors to the station stood open, allowing passengers to freely come and go. Tonight they were shut tight. Olivia recognized an auto-locking solid metal security door when she saw it. The Ranch had installed them on all the houses in case of police raids. Even a door ram would have trouble with them.
With the doors shut, there was no telling if there were any employees or trains at the station. Hopefully there were.
“What’s that smell?” Alita whispered.
Olivia sniffed. Now that they were stopped, she could smell diesel strongly. “Oh, shoot!” She looked at the fuel gauge. It showed that they had less than a quarter tank. “We must have a leak!”
She snapped off the truck’s headlights, dropping them into darkness. As she climbed out of the cab, Alita and Zippo got out on the other side. In the quiet of the night, she could hear a dripping coming from under the truck. The leak must be fairly big for her to hear it.
Alita shone a light under the truck. Olivia knelt down to look. Luckily, she’d parked so the truck straddled a storm drain so the leaking fuel wouldn’t be underfoot, but judging by the speed of the dripping, she’d be out of diesel soon.
The back gate of the truck was riddled with bullet holes, instantly taking her mind off the fuel.
“Is everyone okay?” she asked as she scanned the eager faces of the royal marines. They didn’t look worse for wear.
“That was fun, domi!” Rage said. “Like a sled ride down a mountain!”
“We are fine, domi!” Dagger said. “Are we getting out here?”
“I’m not sure,” Olivia said. She had grown up in South Boston, which was linked to the rest of Massachusetts via passenger trains. Those trains would stay at a remote rail yard until needed at a station. She wasn’t sure how the Elfhome trains worked. “What we need might not be here.”
The marines took that as a “yes” and tumbled out of the back but kept close in case it was actually a “no.”
Olivia assumed Penn Station and its trains were much the same as those of South Boston. She liked to peer into the driver’s cab to study the controls. It always surprised her how simple they seemed. Some of the older ones had been little more than a big lever that the driver worked back and forth to speed up and slow the train.
The Pittsburgh trains might be as simple. She would rather not be the person driving the train. She doubted that anyone else in the truck—Aiofe, Alita, Zippo, and the twenty royal marines—could do any better than she could. She was going to need an engineer. There was only one place that she could think of to get one.
“Aiofe.” Olivia turned her attention to the EIA translator. “Can you call Director Maynard?”
“The phones were down earlier.” Aiofe took out the clunky odd phone that Maynard had given them earlier in the day. She turned it on and gave a slight sound of surprise. “The EIA must have some kind of backup network for their phones. Maynard’s phone has a signal.”
“Good.” Olivia had hoped that the United Nations security force was using a separate system that would be harder to take out. “Ask him for an engineer to drive the train.”
Aiofe nodded as she dialed Maynard’s number. “Okay, engineer to drive the…what? Oh!” She noticed where they were. “We’re stealing a train?”
“Commandeering,” Olivia said firmly.
The royal marines crowded around her, happy and eager despite the day’s insanity.
“Oh, the train!” Ox recognized the location. “Are we going on the train now? We liked the train!”
Several of them attempted to make the sound of train horns. Seriously, it was like having a bunch of five-year-olds. Were they all really eighty years older than she was?
“There should be two platoons of royal marines here,” Dagger said, looking around. “Patches said that both her platoon and Tar’s had pulled night duty here. They were annoyed that they got boring guard duty instead of going on the forest hunt. Patches was pretending to pity me for us having the more tedious watch.”
“Being with domi is not tedious!” Ox defended Olivia loudly.
A noise like the clatter of a security door opening made Olivia sidestep so she could see around the truck. For a moment, she thought it was an elf coming out of the building, but then realized it was a tall, willowy man in an EIA uniform. By luck, the chaos of the royal marines was hidden from him.
Olivia pointed firmly at the ground, whispered, “Stay,” to the marines, and moved to intercept the man. He probably had keys to get through the door. She needed to get his cooperation or she was going to have to ram the doors open with the truck.
The man marched toward her, calling loudly, “You can’t park that truck there! Where did you get it? That’s an official EIA vehicle!”
He was speaking English, so Olivia felt free to lie a little. “Director Maynard left it at Station Square for me to use. Who are you?”
She wanted a name so she could have Maynard deal with the man instead of having to verbally spar with him.
“I’m Lieutenant MacFarland of the Elfhome Interdimensional Agency,” the man said as if Olivia should be impressed by the low rank. “I doubt very much that the director gave a cargo truck to a civilian. Have you been joyriding around the city in an EIA vehicle? On a night like tonight? Shame on you! You should be shot.”
She’d been on shaky ground since she had no real proof that it was Maynard that left the keys in the truck or that he meant for her to take it. She had nearly been cowed until MacFarland spoke the word “shame.” No, she’d been shamed enough in her life—all without any reason other than someone wanted to control her. She was saving lives. She’d saved the Undefended, Duff, and Widget. This man had no right to condemn her without facts.
“I am Olive Branch over Stone,” she said. “I was within my rights to commandeer any vehicle that I want. This city—this world, Elfhome, belongs to the elves. By the dau mark on my forehead, I have the right to do whatever it takes to win this war. No lowly lieutenant of a foreign power—from Earth—has the right to shame me for my actions.”
The man snorted in contempt. “You’re just a streetwalker with aspirations. That smudge on your forehead just says that you’ve sold yourself to the insane male who was ancient before even your grandfather was born. You have no right to this truck, those warriors, or anything in this city. Go home.”
“I need a train—” Olivia started.
He laughed. “A million-dollar piece of equipment vital for the city’s well-being? No! They aren’t toys for you to play with. They’re Wind Clan property. Even if you flaunt your smudge mark around, you have no right to it.”
“Chi-chi-chi,” Dagger said in Elvish coming to join Olivia. “What is this human barking about? I don’t like his tone. He cannot talk to our domi that way!”
I told you to stay, Olivia thought strongly at the marines’ informal leader. Or had Dagger picked up something that she missed? Aoife, still hidden behind the truck, motioned to Olivia. Oh, Dagger was a distraction move by Aoife!
The lieutenant frowned even as he realized that Dagger wasn’t alone. The other marines were taking positions around the rotunda. MacFarland switched to Elvish to say, “The trains belong to the Wind Clan. The Stone Clan domi has no right to them.”
“Who are you to determine what we elves will or will not allow?” Dagger drifted to the left, drawing the man’s attention. The elf seemed more dangerous than Olivia; Dagger had more than a foot in height and had three more weapons. “You know nothing of us! You have been peering through the spyhole, seeing only the Wind Clan for a few short years! What do you know about how we think and act in war? Pfft, Wind Clan will allow the royal marines to take a train.”
“I won’t let you bully the Wind Clan into this.” MacFarland started to slowly back up. Probably a tactical retreat through the locked doors—counting on the politeness of elves to allow him to flee.
Olivia hurried to Aiofe.
“I got through to Maynard,” Aiofe whispered. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
Olivia took the phone. “You said you wouldn’t stop me because you don’t know Sunder’s heart. I need to take a train and Lieutenant MacFarland won’t let us pass.”
“MacFarland?” Maynard said. “What is he doing there? That’s not where he’s supposed to be.”
Olivia hadn’t considered that the EIA was filled with moles. The oni had lured the elves out into the forest, leaving the city almost defenseless. Almost all the domana and thousands of royal marines were trapped miles from Pittsburgh. The only way to quickly transport them back was by train. Had MacFarland misdirected the royal marines guarding the building? Killed them? Killed the Wind Clan elves who knew the inner workings of the train system?
Olivia handed the phone back to Aiofe, unslung the rifle from her shoulder, and shot MacFarland in the leg. She’d aimed for his knee. She was little high but it still took him down.
“You shot me!” MacFarland shouted in surprise.
Why are men always so surprised at being shot after pissing off an armed woman?
“He has keys on him. Find them,” Olivia told Dagger. She took the phone from Aiofe. “Director Maynard, I’m sorry but I’ve winged your man. I’m assuming he’s an oni mole but I could be wrong. You should send an ambulance. Windwolf has called for a retreat and needs transportation. I’m taking the train out to pick up Forest Moss and the others. I need an engineer.”
“Ah,” Maynard said and fell silent a moment as he processed that. “Okay. The elves there should be able to provide an engineer. I’ll see if I can send you some humans just in case something has happened with the elves, but if you can move out without my people, just go. Godspeed.”
This being a domi rocked.
* * *
MacFarland hadn’t killed all of the elves at Penn Station. It turned out that Tinker domi had taken away the royal marines in trucks before MacFarland showed up. His actions had alarmed one of the noncombatants—one of the older males who had spent the most time working with humans. MacFarland had managed to slip him off to the side and quietly kill him. The rest he convinced that the oni army had overrun the enclaves and would arrive shortly. He told them that their best course of action was to barricade themselves in a storage closet.
It made them prisoners of their own fear. MacFarland had also added a travel door lock to the outside, effectively making them real prisoners.
It took the marines a while to talk the elves out of their bolt-hole. In the meantime, Alita and Zippo confirmed that there was a diesel engine with twenty passenger cars sitting at the station. “The plan” had always been that the train would pick up the domana after the battle. Penn Station had been waiting for an order to be relayed that MacFarland obviously hoped to intercept.
Dagger finally got the Wind Clan out of their self-made prison by shouting, “Oi! You Wind Clan are a bunch of cowards! Your domou needs you and cannot think past yourself and your piss-filled pants!”
The female added a bunch of other words that Olivia didn’t know. Neither did Aiofe, judging by the fact that the anthropology grad student took out her tablet and made notes on them.
The door unlocked and the sheepish Wind Clan elves came out.
Aiofe handled explaining about Windwolf calling to be picked up because the explanation required a mix of English and Elvish words that neither Olivia nor the newly arrived Fire Clan knew.
“Duff is back on the air,” Alita reported. “Since these tracks go through Oakland, I let him know how things stand here. He says that the rails are possibly blocked—Tinker compacted a bridge or something like that. I’m not sure I understood that completely—it could have been a code that I’m not cleared to know. He’s asking the militia to make sure a train can get through that area. He’ll let us know if the tracks are clear.”
Olivia nodded as she only had a vague notion where the rails led to. She’d ignored the train the entire two months that she’d been in the city. She’d run as far from the Ranch as she wanted.
Aiofe turned to Olivia. “The damn gobshite MacFarland killed the engineer. This here is Nuthatch. He’s fully trained to drive the engine but he’s never driven one beyond the rail yard.”
Nuthatch wore the blue denim bib overalls and pinstripe cap of an engineer but somehow looked like he was a tall human cosplaying an anime mash-up character. The male was painfully skinny and his hands nervously flitted about as if he had no real control over them. He bowed in greeting, spilling his long braid of black hair over his shoulder. His hands gathered it up, fingered the braid nervously, and then fed the end of it into his mouth, chewing on it without seeming to be aware of what he was doing.
Aiofe dropped to a whisper to add, “Frankly, he’s scared shitless, but he’s willing to give it a go as long as the marines come along.”
None of this filled Olivia with confidence. It was what it was.
Aiofe waved toward the platform. “The engine is fueled and ready to go. The mechanics will ride along to deal with emergencies—again—if the marines come with us.”
Alita held her hand to her ear, listening to something that Duff was telling her over the radio. “We’ve got an all clear for the tracks through Oakland, though Duff says we should be aware of possible snipers.”
Olivia expected the Wind Clan elves to give some signal that they were boarding the train and then realized that everyone was waiting on her to say something. “Let’s go!”
“You’re going on the train with them?” Alita whispered.
Was she? Olivia hadn’t even considered not going, but there was no real reason that she had to go. Or was there? The royal marines wouldn’t go without her—their orders were to protect her. The elves who knew how to run the train, though, were frightened and unarmed. They wouldn’t be able to deal with anything unexpected down the road.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m going.”
“We want to go with you!” Alita whispered. Zippo nodded behind his tiny cousin.
She hadn’t expected Tommy’s fierce kittens to go with her. They were just blocks from the William Penn Hotel. “It’s going to be dangerous.”
“We’re probably never going to have another chance to ride the train,” Alita whispered. “It’s an elf-only kind of thing. The passenger trains used to go past our old place out in Oakland. When we were little, we used to hang out the windows to watch them go by. We’d hear the rumble of the engine and rails ringing and such even when we weren’t looking. There was always something about it—like it was a promise that the elves wouldn’t lose the war and we’d be free of the oni. We’ve always wanted to ride the train! Leave Pittsburgh. See something of the world beyond Oakland.”
“See the ocean,” Zippo added.
Olivia understood then. She used to watch the trail of dust kicked up by cars driving past the Ranch on a distant country road. She imagined hiking out and trying to convince the drivers to take her back to Boston. Back to her grandmother’s house where she could see the ocean from her bedroom window. “Okay. You can come. Stay close. Oh—we should make sure that MacFarland is tied up or something before we leave.”
“Oh, he’s dead,” Alita said in the polite tone usually used in telling someone that it was a bank holiday and their restaurant was closed for the day.
“What?” Olivia gasped. She was sure she hadn’t hit an artery. He hadn’t been bleeding that badly.
Alita winced. “Yeaaah, the marines seemed to think that you meant to kill him. His throat was cut—sometime after we found the elves locked in the closet.”
How was Olivia going to explain that to Maynard? She’d have to deal with it later.
* * *
While the passenger cars looked like those on a typical Amtrak train, the engine didn’t resemble the ones on Earth. It had a massive hatchet nose instead of the standard low cowcatcher. The windshield peered over the wedge of metal, allowing the driver to see the tracks.
Aiofe noticed her gazing at it. “The entire rail system is a fascinating adaption of technology. The elves set up wards that keep most animals off the tracks. The nose will plow through any larger creature that gets past the shielding. The wards also drain off magic in the area near the rails so it can’t pool and interact with the metal bits of the train. All the engines were built for Elfhome. Their electronics are especially insulated and they have fewer computerized fussy bits than the more modern ones of Earth have.”
“Tell the mechanics that we want the lights off in the cars while we go through Oakland,” Olivia said and then explained, “That way snipers won’t be able to see any possible targets on the train.”
Aiofe squeaked with alarm and went off to find the mechanics.
Olivia motioned for the royal marines to enter the passenger car directly behind the engine. “We don’t have enough people to guard the entire train. There’s four side doors and the passageway to the next car. Split into teams of five, one team on each side door in this car.”
“Yes, domi!” they said but then bounded from car to car like golden retrievers in a pickup bed. She assumed that once the train got moving the marines would actually do what she told them.
Olivia found Nuthatch inside the engine cab. The controls on the front panel, below the windshield, looked fairly simple but Olivia was glad that she wasn’t the one responsible for driving. She paid close attention, though, just in case she ended up having to.
Nuthatch engaged a knife switch straight out of an old Frankenstein movie. “We weren’t sure when domou would send word for the trains, so we didn’t have them idling. It’s a waste of fuel.”
From there, Nuthatch flipped about a hundred switches on a circuit-breaker panel. Some were simply labeled LIGHTS and FUEL PUMP while others were more obscure like DPC and LRMS POWER. From there he turned and held a switch labeled FUEL PRIME—ENGINE START.
That part she understood as it wasn’t much different from the older tractors on the Ranch. On deep winter mornings, the diesel engines needed to be primed with fuel before they could be started.
Once the engine was primed, Nuthatch flipped the switch to START and the massive engine rumbled to life.
“We’re ready to move?” Olivia asked.
“Almost.” Nuthatch fluttered his hands about and then chewed on his braid, apparently thinking. Not reassuring. Then almost singing the order of operations, he punched various buttons, flipped switches, and turned knobs. “There!”
She was never going to remember that.
Nuthatch tooted the train horn as a warning that the engine was about to start moving. As Olivia suspected, moving forward was simply taking off brakes and moving the one big acceleration lever on the control panel. They started slow, pulling out of the station.
Alita and Zippo came into the engine from the passenger cars.
“Did the marines stop running around?” Olivia asked.
Alita was grinning ear to ear inside her black hoodie. “Yeah, they did. I can’t blame them; we were exploring too. These things are nicer than the light rail! And they have bathrooms too!”
Alita ducked her head as if embarrassed by her childlike glee.
They passed under the three main bridges of Oakland. The area was complete chaos. Parts of the city were on fire. One of the bridges had been completely blown away, its broken decks just narrowly missing the railroad tracks. Something was flashing brilliant white with a loud bong noise. Rifles cracked overhead and occasional bullets whined through the train.
And then they were out in virgin forest, surrounded by darkness, chasing the light thrown by their lone headlight.
“So cool,” Alita whispered in a mantra. “So cool. So cool.”
“How far is it to where the domana are?” Olivia asked Nuthatch.
“It is less than an hour at this speed—at least that is what the daylight engineers who shuttled out the royal marines told me. I do know for sure that it took two hours to go out, unload, and come back for the next load. They were using one of the old work camps that we used while laying the tracks. I think I’ll be able to spot it despite the dark and rain. All the camps are well marked and maintained in case of breakdowns.”
Olivia was glad that they had a little time before arriving at the camp: she needed to pee. She made her way to the bathroom of the first car, glad to discover that the mechanics had turned the lights back on. On the way back from the cramped toilet, she discovered that the mechanics had also brought baskets full of food on board. She hadn’t eaten since morning and started to feel queasy. She accepted a sandwich made of a rye bun stuffed with smoked ham, thin sliced raw onions, a goudalike cheese, sweet pickles, and a coarse ground mustard. It wasn’t like any sandwich that she’d had before but she knew that if she didn’t eat something soon, she’d throw up what little she had in her stomach.
She took three of the sandwiches to the engine for Nuthatch, Alita, and Zippo. The trio were staring out the windshield as they roared through the dark rainy night. Alita updated her on what the militia knew, based on how the fighting was going in Oakland. Forge and Jewel Tear were without their domana powers and had been unconscious until Forge’s sekasha woke them up using some kind of healing spell. Tinker and Oilcan had dodged the oni spell—the militia wasn’t sure how—and were out fighting.
“Forest Moss has not made you domana yet…because of the child?” Nuthatch suddenly asked.
Alita had been speaking English. Olivia didn’t think that Nuthatch knew the language but apparently he knew enough to follow the discussion.
“No,” Olivia said. “Nor do I want to be changed.”
“I would not want to be made human and left on Earth to fend for myself,” Nuthatch said with hands fluttering. “Nor would I want to be made domana. I think if I did not like my basic self, maybe I would be quick to change but I like the way that the gods have made me.” He held up his sandwich that he’d denuded of pickles. “There is no good reason that I like onions and not pickles—but I do and that is me, and I am fine with that. It might be uncomfortable at times to be of nervous nature—but that is how I am and I do not know if I would like being otherwise. It makes me cautious around the big engines and pay close attention to details. The one I love thinks my timid nature is endearing. Would I actually like the type of person who wants a bold partner? My beloved is gentle with me and that is what I love about them.”
“They will not let Forest Moss and me stay together if I’m not domana,” Olivia said.
“Pfft!” Nuthatch said. “That is Clan War talk. ‘Be afraid of the other’ is not the same as living cautiously. I—of all people—should know. We have been at peace for longer than most of the elves in Pittsburgh have been alive but our society has not changed since the Rebellion. I do envy the ones who have started households with humans. They have so much more freedom to explore what they want to be. I had to leave everything behind to come to Pittsburgh and learn the trains. I was only allowed because I was a jeweler and had apprenticed on clockworks brought from Earth. If I had been laedin, I would have been barred from anything but standing guard on them.”
“Yeah, screw them,” Alita said. “The only reason people are so nuts about elves are because they’re pretty. It’s like they’re movie stars or rock idols. Really—all common sense goes out the window when they see elves. It was always frustrating as hell to know my family got the wrong end of that stick.”
“Oh! Oh!” Nuthatch waved out the windshield. They were crossing a bridge made of massive ironwood timbers. “We are coming up on the camp! We cross this bridge and it is another few minutes. Should we start slowing down? I think we should—it is not as imperative as if we were pulling a heavily loaded freight, but it will take some effort to come to a full stop safely.”
“Slow down,” Olivia said.
Nuthatch eased back on the lever that controlled speed. “I will start applying brakes once we bleed off some speed.”
They rounded a wide gentle bend and the camp appeared on the left side of the tracks, lit by elfshines in massive numbers. There was something huge and gleaming standing on the rails. It was some kind of giant glowing scorpion. There were royal marines dashing in and out of the light thrown by the monster, shooting gleaming spell arrows at it. The marines’ attacks seemed to be having no effect on the insectoid creature.
“Oh, shit!” Alita whispered.
Nuthatch grabbed another lever and started to apply it. The train shuddered and brakes squealed.
“No, no, no!” Olivia shouted. “Hit it!”
She jerked off the brakes and pushed the acceleration to full. She reached over and grabbed the train horn. She blared it long and loud to let the world know that they were coming.
She let up on the horn to shout, “Brace for impact!”
She heard Aiofe repeat it to the royal marines.
She laid on the horn, bracing against the strike. Zippo suddenly enveloped her in strong arms and lifted her away from the panel. He sat down, still holding her, and braced his legs. She had a moment of confusion and then realized that he was protecting her baby. She clung to him, whispering a quick prayer that she hadn’t just done something incredibly stupid.
The gleam of the monster became a dawning sun in the cab and then they hit. There was a violent slam forward as they struck the immovable object and then a shudder as pure momentum plowed the massive iron hatchet nose of the engine through the monster. The train shuddered and then leapt forward.
“Slow us down!” Olivia tried to reach the accelerator. “Ease off!”
Nuthatch grabbed hold of the lever and slowed them. Muttering, he eased on the brakes and slowly brought them to a halt.
“Wow! We really nailed it!” Alita said, leaning out the side door to look behind them. “I’m fairly sure it’s dead. It’s laying there like a smashed cockroach—legs up and not twitching.”
“Oh, thank God,” Olivia whispered.
* * *
Because the elves might be hair trigger around anyone who wasn’t an elf, Olivia attempted to keep the first passenger car for her people and the Wind Clan. (Since the half-oni were Oilcan’s Beholden, they were technically Wind Clan. Olivia was hoping that was enough to keep the two Changs safe, especially big shy Zippo.) Ox volunteered to go out and find Forest Moss in the flood of elves retreating out of the forest. The rest of her escort guarded the doors, directing Stone Clan and Fire Clan to the other cars.
It was an orderly retreat. The royal marines—with their complete trust of their officers—sorted themselves into waves and gave priority to the sekasha and domana among them.
“They’re not going to all fit,” Olivia murmured to Alita as she watched the clearing fill up with warriors.
“Duff was working on getting a second train up and running,” Alita said. “They were running three trains to get everyone out here so the other two are someplace.”
Hopefully not on their way to Brotherly Love. There was nothing Olivia could do now, so she sat in one of the front chairs and fretted.
Glaive Smites the Sun and the other four Wyverns who made up her normal escort carried Forest Moss to the first door, with Ox going, “This way holy ones, this way please!”
She knew that she loved Forest Moss just by how horrible the sight of his still body made her feel.
“Is he hurt?” she asked as they settled him into the first window seat at the front of the train.
“The oni have stripped him of his connection to your Spell Stones,” Glaive said. “Nothing more. They did the same to Prince True Flame and the Harbingers. Wolf Who Rules Wind is the only one who is unaffected. We are going to entrust Forest Moss on Stone to you, his domi, and return to supervise the retreat.”
He is useless to them now so they abandon him to his madness, Olivia thought. She brushed the thought aside. They had carried him to safety and entrusted him to someone who loved him. They could have left him lying in the woods.
“We have put a spell on him to wake him up,” Glaive said, indicating Forest Moss’s torn left sleeve and the runes inked on his skin. “But he has not roused yet. The Harbingers say he will rouse shortly.”
The Wyverns bowed to her and left.
A horrible feeling welled up inside her. They’d left her alone with Forest Moss when he was completely helpless. How was she to care for him? Was he really unharmed? If he didn’t wake, how could she get him back to their place? Was their place even safe? Oakland had been filled with chaos when they rode past it.
“Do not worry, domi,” Dagger said. “You have us! We will keep you safe!”
She gave a breathless laugh because it had been so hard to see the royal marines as anything more than a class of five-year-olds, needing to be kept safe. Yes, they were fearless in battle but they didn’t know anything about Pittsburgh. The truck had been leaking fuel since Mount Oliver. In the hour since they parked at Penn Station, it could have emptied out completely. If the truck was out of diesel, she didn’t even know how to get them back to Oakland short of walking half the night. “I don’t even know where to go after we get back to the city. I don’t know where we’ll sleep.”
“You can stay with us!” Zippo said from the window seat behind Forest Moss.
“Yeah, you could!” Alita leaned forward from the aisle seat. “We’re running the William Penn as an enclave! We’ve got plenty of beds and bathrooms. You can stay the night and figure it out tomorrow.”
Run to the Changs if you’re scared, the Undefended used to tell her.
She was scared. She glanced at Forest Moss. Did his pulse always leap so visibly at the base of his neck? She took his limp hand and was alarmed to find it cold and wet. She rubbed it between her own as she realized that he was completely soaked to the bone. They needed to get him into something dry and warmed up.
Still, it felt wrong to throw herself onto the good will of Tommy’s baby cousins. His family had to be in dire straits if so many of them were out walking Liberty Avenue.
“I—We can pay,” Olivia said. She had an entire purse of elf gold ingots hidden back at Phipps. “We’re going to need a lot of rooms.”
“If you can pay,” Alita said, “then you stay as long as you want. That’s what a hotel is for!”
“That sounds fun,” Aiofe said from the floor in front of Olivia with Rage and Ox. “It’ll be like a sleepover party.”
Aiofe had spent the entire day—between gun battles—grilling the royal marines about their culture and language. She saw it as her duty (and pleasure) as a graduate anthropology student to gather as much information as possible on the Fire Clan while it was in Pittsburgh. Since Maynard had reassigned her to Olivia, she didn’t even need an excuse to tag along. Olivia couldn’t send her away to protect her.
Nor did she really want to. The older girl at least understood the complexities of the human world. Olivia suddenly desperately didn’t want to be alone in the big empty hotel with just the royal marines and the unconscious Forest Moss.
There was a stir among the elves within the car and Wolf Who Rules Wind boarded, followed by fifteen of his sekasha. They were muddy and worn but seemed unharmed. One could almost feel the love and awe that his people radiated toward him.
It seemed so unfair that it had been denied Forest Moss.
With a distressing whine, Forest Moss stirred. He struggled to open his one good eye, stark fear on his face. When he saw her, the fear slipped into confusion.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
“Oh, my domi,” he whispered, gripping her hand. “As long as I have you, I do not care what else I have.”