16: A BIRD IN HAND
It started to rain as Tristan walked away from the incline station.
The observation platform beside the incline gave a commanding view of Pittsburgh. The city stood dark in the falling twilight. The lines of the skyscrapers blurred as the rain swept forward block by block. He heard the rain coming, the leading front sounding like an oncoming train. Lightning flickered in the dark clouds. He took the rain jacket from his backpack, put it on, and pulled up the hood moments before the front washed over him.
The WESA radio tower was a red skeleton frame surrounded by a tall iron fence. The gate stood open. A pickup truck was backing a trailer-mounted generator through the opening. The generator had WOLLERTON HARDWARE printed across its side.
An old UPS delivery truck sat in the parking lot. It had been painted with a flock of colorful cartoon sheep. All up and down the street was a small fleet of vehicles parked haphazardly, suggesting that their drivers had rushed to the scene.
Tristan walked past the parking lot and stopped under the marquee of a small ice cream shop, which gave him the excuse that he’d paused merely for its shelter. The rain drummed loudly on the pink-striped canvas. He took out his phone and pretended that it didn’t have a signal to buy himself time to think of what little he did know about his brother’s plans to take the city. Even as their father cast the spell to render the domana helpless, Lucien’s people had shut down the city’s power grid and telecommunication systems. His brother wanted to be able to take out the enclaves in Oakland without the humans rallying to save the elves. The randomly scattered acts of sabotage would keep Director Maynard and his EIA forces busy elsewhere. With the power off, there was no need to worry about the television stations reporting their attack on the enclaves. Lucien had moles at the big three radio stations—KDKA, WQED, and WTAE—who would keep a lid on news reports.
Chloe hadn’t told Lucien about WESA. It was a hole in their blackout plans. Obviously the power outage had damaged WESA’s ability to broadcast but that was about to be solved. Tengu were working with the humans to get the generator connected to the tower. Their black wings were unmistakable, even in the downpour. The tengu belonged to the changeling. If they were here, then WESA was of more tactical importance than Chloe had believed.
Tristan needed to sabotage this effort somehow. It shouldn’t be too hard. Electricity and rain did not mix.
He put away his phone.
“Ah, there you are!” a female said directly behind him. “My little flying monkey.”
Tristan jerked around, half-expecting Esme since that was her old nickname for him. It wasn’t his sister but a tall stranger: a female elf with long white hair, faded gown of fairy silk, and high-top tennis shoes. He had no idea who this was but felt a weird sense of sudden familiarity as if this person was deeply important to him. “What?”
“Here, take this,” the female said and pressed something warm and fluffy into his right hand. She caught his left hand and guided it up to cup whatever she had handed him as it started to squirm. It was something small and living.
“What in the world?” He would have dropped the creature if he could but she still had hold of his hands, forcing him to hold it. It was some kind of baby bird, all yellow fluff and light bones and tiny sharp talons. It cheeped at him, a small piercing sound. He wasn’t sure but it seemed like it was a baby chicken. “What? No. I don’t want this.”
“What does that matter?” the female elf said. “You’ve taken on harder responsibilities that you didn’t want from your father and brother. Find this person. Find that person. What does it matter that finding them leads to blood?”
He stared at her in horror. How did she know that? How did she get so close to him without him realizing that someone was nearby? “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want you to be responsible for this fragile life and the others that you hold within your hands. Your sister’s children are so young and brilliant—and headstrong. They are in terrible danger and only you can save them.”
Did she mean the twins? “They’re with their grandmother.”
“Your mother is dead.”
“What? No. That’s not possible.”
She gave him a look of pity, shaking her head. “Your mother could have lived forever. She had the blood of dragons and elves flowing through her. It would have been simple for your father to bring her here and give her back her immortality. He was too afraid to—just as he’s afraid to give it to your baby sisters. To your big brother. To you. He lost everything because our bloodline lived long enough to spit in his face—he will never make any of you immortal again. None of you will live to see the end of his unholy war.”
“My mother is not dead. I saw her just a few weeks ago.”
“She is gone. Cold and unclaimed and will go a pauper’s grave because there’s no one there to claim her body.”
“My father’s people will—”
“They fled into the night as your sister’s children burned the house down as they escaped. No one is on Earth to mourn your mother. All her bloodline is trapped on this world with you.”
“No. That’s not possible. The twins can’t be here.”
“They are. Charging into danger even as we speak. Whoever came up with the phrase ‘more fun than a barrel full of monkeys’ had never dealt with the phenomenon. The noise that they make alone is deafening.”
Tristian paused, confused. Was she literally talking about a barrel filled with pissed-off primates somewhere in the city? “What monkeys?”
“Your sister’s children. I have no idea what Esme was thinking when she loosed that chaos on the world. One was all that was required. Why did she feel the need for more?”
The old woman meant the changeling and the twins. “I don’t think Esme intended to be more than one.”
“It is neither here nor there; what is done is done,” the old elf female said. “They’re flitting around the city, getting into trouble.”
Tristan shook his head. This couldn’t be true. The twins were on Earth with his mother and Yves…
Adele said that Yves was dead. Buried under a ton of rock. Father must have known about some secret cavern pathway—too small and dangerous to use often. Was Yves bringing the twins to Elfhome when it collapsed, killing him?
“Your father will not let them live,” the female said. “He will kill your sister’s children. All of your sisters. Your brother too—no matter how faithful his service has been. Your father is too afraid of our potential to allow any of us to live. He’s already killed the sister you loved the best. She saw what was coming and tried to escape.”
Did she mean Bethany? No one would talk about his favorite baby sister. He’d been afraid that something horrible had happened to her but he didn’t want to believe that his father would actually kill one of the Eyes. His entire childhood, he’d been told that all the secrets they kept from his mother had been for a good reason. A just reason. That not telling her the truth would protect her from their terrible enemies.
No. He couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t believe it. This random stranger had to be lying. “Our potential? Shouldn’t it been ‘your family’s’ potential?”
“Where do you think your family’s ability to see the future comes from? He made me from bits and pieces thousands of years ago with no idea how dangerous a dragon can be—even one torn down and rebuilt into another race. Dragons’ minds are not like elves’; our souls can be separated from our bodies and rejoined to another. I remember everything that he has done to me. For thousands of years, I’ve worked to undo that damage.”
Was this female claiming to be his ancestor somehow? He laughed, shaking his head. “My mother isn’t a half-elf. Neither was my grandmother.”
“These pointy ears were an afterthought to mark one’s slaves. They vanish after two or three generations—just in case you want to elevate some ill-begotten bastard to legitimate status. Had you not noticed that, for a family of wealthy bankers for generations, there were no photographs of them?”
He had. They had photos of houses and dogs and horses for his maternal line but few photographs of the actual people.
The chick squirmed in his hands and cheeped loudly.
“Why are you telling me this?” he said. “Why the chicken?”
“You’re to give this to your niece when you see her. Tell her to remember her chess moves. It will be important.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s better that you don’t.”
The female picked up an umbrella that was leaning against the doors of the ice cream shop. The outside was black but when she opened it up, it had a family of chickens printed on the lining: a rooster, a hen, and four baby yellow chicks that could be siblings to the one he held. She stepped out from under the marquee, the pounding rain making a misty halo above her as it bounced off her umbrella.
“Wait!” he said as she turned the corner. He ran after her but she had vanished as mysteriously as she had appeared. The alley was blocked by a dark tall picket fence.
He stood in the pouring rain, staring in confusion at the empty alley. Who was that? Where did she go? Was what she told him true? Were his mother and Bethany dead? He could believe the latter easily—everyone had dodged his questions about her for over a year. He didn’t want to believe his mother was dead. He couldn’t ignore the cold fear that he had when he tried to see her last. There, in the magic-rich grounds of the mansion, he’d been sure that he would never get the chance to say goodbye. He’d been equally sure that with the twins in the house, his father’s punishment for him not leaving quietly would have been swift, sure, and painful.
His mother was dead. She’d died alone, just as he feared.
He stumbled back under the marquee, suddenly blinded by tears. His hands were full of baby chick, so he scrubbed at his face with wet cuff of his rain jacket.
I don’t have time for this, he forced himself to think despite the fact his heart felt like a black sucking hole within his chest. If I don’t shut down this radio station, we might lose. Father will be angry…
The thought of his father’s rage was like opening a box and seeing plain truth within it.
Father killed Bethany.
Tristan was suddenly as sure of it as if he witnessed it himself. Bethany was sweet and gentle but unbending. Her sweetness came from the knowledge of her own strength; she was above the petty jealousy and fears of her sisters. She did not fight; any hostility, she would step aside and let it pass. If trouble broke out, Bethany could not be found.
If she realized that their father planned to kill them all if they somehow survived the war, she would have run.
What do I do?
He knew that he needed to do something. Run. Plan. Fight. He’d been taught how to survive since he was very young. But he’d been equally taught from birth to be loyal his father, to take extraordinary risks merely to be sure that his father wouldn’t be unhappy with him. The two powerful forces were nothing compared to the black hole of grief that was swallowing him up.
He could only slide down into a ball and weep.