3: PLEASE STAND BY
Leaving North Side. Stand by in McKees Rocks.
Tinker’s Morse code message to Oilcan was at once completely clear while extremely vague. Where was she heading? To Oakland? If she was, she didn’t want him there to help her.
Oilcan wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to fight but he knew from experience that if he did nothing, and Tinker was killed, he would never be able to live with himself. It still haunted him that he had hidden in a closet while his father killed his mother. He’d only crept out of hiding after his father’s rage had turned to grief. He’d stood in the kitchen as his mother’s blood pooled around his bare toes.
It didn’t matter that he’d been only a ten-year-old boy, built small like the rest of his mother’s family. His father had been a wild bear of a man filled with alcohol, self-importance, and rage that simple hard work wasn’t bringing him the success he thought he should have earned. His mother had been smart and resourceful and could have fled Boston at any time over the years as his father became more and more violent. None of it ever mattered deep in his heart.
He’d done nothing to save his mother. He lived with crushing guilt since that night.
He needed to head to Oakland. Thorne Scratch would not leave him; the sekasha protected the domana from capture as well as from harm. Moon Dog would probably also stay with him for the same reason. He couldn’t take the kids with him.
His five kids had no combat training or weapons. Rustle had a broken arm. The four who had been rescued from the whelping pens were trying to be brave but there was terror in their eyes. Spot was only eight or nine. Until a few days ago, the boy had never left the half-oni compound because of his puppy dog looks. The tengu girl, Rebecca Brotman, had been stung multiple times by giant hornets. She was barely conscious. Blue Sky Montana had spent the last month or so learning how to fight from the sekasha but Oilcan knew from experience that the little half-elf would want to wade into the thick of things—heedless of danger. That worked at the racetrack where no one dared to use brute force on a child. It wouldn’t work against the oni. Roach’s little brother, Andy, was a klutz who lacked any common sense. There was a reason Team Tinker never allowed Andy to handle anything that could be dangerous or easily broken.
Andy’s younger cousin, Guy Kryskill, had two rifles in his pickup’s gun rack. The Kryskills were local legends at shooting. Like his brothers, Guy was tall, broad shouldered, and levelheaded, but he was only sixteen. Besides, Oilcan wanted Guy to watch over the others.
Oilcan knew also that he couldn’t leave the kids at Geoffrey Kryskill’s workshop. Storm clouds blanketed the sky. Thunder rumbled with the approach of heavy rain. Night was falling. The power was out. His kids were already terrified. The cavernous warehouse had no creature comforts nor was it particularly safe.
“Guy, Andy, Blue Sky,” Oilcan named them all despite the fact that he thought of Guy as the one he was leaving in charge. “I’m not sure if it’s safe to stay here. The oni already jumped us on the South Side. They might come here, looking for me. You need to find someplace else.”
“My brother’s not home,” Blue Sky said.
Oilcan nodded even though he’d already mentally eliminated the gas station. The oni must have had someone spying on them in Oakland because Oilcan didn’t know he was going shopping until Tinker told him about her little sisters. Yes, he planned to go sometime for everything his kids needed. It was the panic of being guardian to two preteen copies of Tinker that had made the trip today and not later, after the domana returned to Pittsburgh.
He had to assume that the oni knew who was with him. Blue Sky had arrived at Sacred Heart by hoverbike, probably traveling at near Mach speed like normal. A Roach Refuse dumpster hauler had been sitting at the front gate—complete with door lettering advertising the landfill’s address.
Where else would the kids be safely hidden?
“Tooloo’s place was closed,” Blue Sky said. “She might not be home. She keeps everything tightly locked when she’s out.”
“My mom’s house is bad,” Guy said without elaborating.
“We could go to the clubhouse,” Andy said.
They stared at Andy for a minute, surprised.
“What?” Andy said.
“That’s a good idea,” Oilcan said.
When Roach decided he wasn’t leaving Pittsburgh to go to college, he laid claim to a flashy, prefabricated, modular “log cabin” mansion. The home was on a remote country road, ten miles from his parents’ place. It was a party house with all the bells and whistles: five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a massive combined kitchen and living room, a walkout finished basement, a two-story deck, an inground swimming pool, an oversized two-car garage, and a second detached garage with three more bays.
Roach ran Team Tinker’s merchandising business out of the basement. The team had pooled money to buy tools, hoverbikes, and other racing gear. The mansion provided space enough to store it all. People started to stock favorite food and drinks in the pantry, refrigerator, and the big industrial-size freezer. Someone found a billiard table and moved it in. Team members hunted down old pinball machines abandoned around the city to refurbish. Slowly the place became where Team Tinker would hang out, strategize, and play all hours of the day.
After two years of living with the chaos, Roach had moved closer to his parents and donated the log mansion to the team. Despite its official status as their clubhouse, the team kept its remote location quiet. It stood empty too much. They didn’t want someone breaking in and ransacking it. Neither Tinker nor Oilcan had been out to it since May. None of the team had used it much this summer, what with the war breaking out and shutting down racing. The oni probably didn’t know that it existed.
It would be a good place for the kids to stay. The mansion had beds and couches enough to sleep a score of people, a well-stocked pantry, and an emergency generator for power.
“Blue, take my pickup truck again.” Oilcan wanted to be sure that Blue didn’t balk at running and hiding. “I need you to protect the others. Guy, you and Andy take lead. There’s not going to be any patrols of royal marines out this far.”
Guy nodded. “You’re not coming with us.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Of course he is!” Andy said. “You are—aren’t you?”
“He’s going to Oakland.” Blue Sky pouted as if Oilcan was going to a party without him.
“I need to,” Oilcan told the boys. “The oni grabbed my kids once. I’m asking you to keep them safe while I go deal with whatever is in Oakland.”
“Geoffrey’s in Oakland,” Guy said. “So is Roach. Both of them would tell us to go home if we showed up there. The joy of being the baby brother of the family: everyone treats you like you’re still eight years old.”
Andy nodded to this as the cousins were both the youngest of their respective family branches. Guy used to have a little sister but she had vanished without a trace when they were all just little kids. It made both families more protective of their remaining siblings.
“You’ve got keys to the clubhouse?” Guy asked because with Andy you needed to check things like that.
Andy patted his pockets until he found a large key ring. “Yeah, I have keys.”
Which was good because Oilcan’s set was at Sacred Heart.
There was a sudden loud rumble of thunder as the storm hit the river valley.
“It’s going to rain.” Baby Duck whimpered.
There wasn’t room enough for all ten kids in the two cabs. Rustle and Rebecca were both wounded and couldn’t be jammed in tight with others. There was also the possibility that they might get into a running fight.
“I’ll get a rain cover.” Guy headed to his brother’s storage lockers. He came back with green canvas tarps and some nylon rope. “We can tie one end down and let them hold onto the other end so they’re not pinned in.”
Lightning struck someplace nearby with a loud crack, lighting up the skylights, followed instantly with a boom of thunder. His kids and Spot all yelped.
“Should we be going out in the storm?” Cattail Reeds asked what they were all obviously thinking.
“It will be okay,” Guy said as he cut the rope into one-yard lengths. He handed four to Blue Sky to fasten to the corners of his tarp. “We don’t have that far to go—we’ll be there in twenty minutes or so. We can stick to back roads. We probably won’t see another vehicle. Blue and I both know the way so even if we lose sight of each other, we can get there easy.”
They secured one end of the tarp to the tie-down anchors. On the other end, they created looped handles that could be threaded through the tie-down and held taunt. After a short debate, it was decided that if it came to a running fight, it would be better to have Andy in the cab than wounded Rebecca. Guy found some quilted moving blankets to make her more comfortable in the bare metal bed of his pickup.
His kids surprised Oilcan by hugging not only him goodbye but also Thorne Scratch. They had been terrified of her just days ago. He could see that it also startled her in that she set her face to the warrior’s neutral mask, but she warmly embraced each child.
“Listen to Blue Sky,” Thorne murmured as she pressed her cheek to Cattail Reeds. “He is true sekasha, even as small as he is. He knows these males and this city. He would not lead you into danger.”
It hadn’t occurred to Oilcan that Thorne Scratch wouldn’t automatically trust Andy and Guy. It was Blue Sky’s judgment that swayed her.
Spot hovered near Baby Duck, looking as if he was worried that he’d be left behind.
“It’s going to be okay.” Oilcan lifted Spot into the back of the pickup that Blue Sky would be driving.
“I want Tommy,” Spot whispered as he huddled alone in the truck bed.
“We’ll get you back home as soon as the fighting is over,” Oilcan promised. Wherever that might be; he wasn’t sure where the half-oni lived. Every time he brought up the subject, Tommy growled something like “we’re not staying.”
Spot nodded dolefully. The little boy obviously wanted to believe Oilcan but knew the oni too well.
Oilcan lifted Baby Duck up into the pickup’s high bed. The little female was quacking out of nervousness. She and Spot clung to each other. The elfhound puppy, Repeat, leapt up to settle on the other side of Baby Duck. Merry helped Rustle up into the cab and scrambled into the back. Oilcan realized that the kids were splitting up in the same way as when they left the enclave. It put all the younger kids together—which shouldn’t be a problem if Guy was leading in his pickup.
“What about him?” Blue Sky glanced at Moon Dog. The look was more worried than hostile—the fight with the oni must have changed Blue’s opinion of the male.
Oilcan still wasn’t sure how Moon Dog ended up on their shopping trip or even how he got to Pittsburgh, since he hadn’t been on the official list of newly arrived Stone Clan sekasha.
The male must have wandered into Sacred Heart just as Blue Sky described the ice cream shop. The decision to come along with them seemed so utterly random—especially for one of the holy warriors. Nor was Oilcan sure that Moon Dog had followed the developments since they fled South Side. Did he understand that the oni were invading Oakland and that the other domana were dead or injured? The conversation had flowed in and out of English and Elvish. If Blue Sky no longer distrusted the male, sending Moon Dog with the kids was an option.
But it really wasn’t Oilcan’s choice to make. Moon Dog wasn’t his Beholden.
“I’m going back to the enclaves,” Oilcan told Moon Dog after explaining the situation.
“Waya!” Moon Dog said. “The little ones are going on to someplace safe while we stand and fight! Wonderful! It will be just and honorable battle.”
We. That sounded like the warrior intended to come with Oilcan, no matter how bad the odds were. Thorne Scratch had said that the warrior monks from Cold Mountain Temple saw the war with the oni as “a chance of a lifetime for glorious battle without any stain on their honor.” Perhaps that was why Moon Dog was in Pittsburgh. But why, then, had he come with them for ice cream?
Cattail Reeds and Barley had gotten settled into the back of Guy’s truck with Rebecca and Andy’s two big elfhounds. The kids were ready to go. Still it felt so wrong, covering the kids up with a piece of cloth and sending them into the stormy night alone. The tarp might protect them from the rain but not the oni. Even if Oilcan went with them, there wasn’t enough space in the flatbed’s cab for more people. If he was going to ask Thorne Scratch and Moon Dog to fight an entire army, he couldn’t soak them to the skin for an hour beforehand.
And fight an entire army was exactly what they might be doing. Prince True Flame had emptied the city of almost all of the royal forces. The expectation had been that Forge and Jewel Tear could effectively protect Oakland.
“You’ll get there when you get there,” Oilcan told Guy. “There’s no reason to rush. Just be careful.”
Guy snorted. “I’ve got the easy job. You’re the one who needs to be careful.”