by Baen Books
Her history lesson suddenly made sense. She had laid out what it was that these hidden elves wanted: a world where lives of others meant nothing when weighed against their comforts.
Law was getting that familiar angry feeling that she got from having her nose rubbed in injustice. It was a clenching of teeth until her jaw hurt and the nails of her fingers digging into her clenched hands.
"We have to go," Bare Snow said in English.
Law nodded in agreement.
Bare Snow threw arms around Law and kissed her. It was so sudden that Law didn't really get a chance to enjoy it.
"You've got to be kidding," Widget cried. "Really?"
"Um." Law was still off-balanced by the kiss. "Yeah. I'm an expert at getting people out of shit-deep messes."
Pittsburgh had been a city of bridges; nearly five hundred just in the city proper and another thousand scattered in the hills around it. It no longer had the means to keep them all maintained. It lacked the money and the manpower and simple necessity of linking one abandoned neighborhood to another. Main roads linked the city together, but not in a short and direct method. An hour before Shutdown and those main roads were bumper to bumper with several thousand vehicles trying to get into position at the checkpoints or back home before the floodgates of Earth opened up.
Luckily the traffic kept to the main roads, leaving the side streets, backyards, and occasionally shallow streams clear for Law. (Got to love six-wheel drive.) As the crow flies (which was close to the way Law drove) it was six miles to Windgap.
"We need to be careful," Law said. "Just in case we run into the Viceroy's guard."
"They were decoyed somehow from his side. They will not know where to start looking for him."
They reached Fairywood. The Viceroy's car sat on the last dead end street, its headlights still shining on the house where Law had found Bare Snow. The driver and the back passenger doors were open. One of the sekasha warriors lay sprawled on the ground beside the big gray luxury car. He'd been dragged from the car and mauled by a large animal.
"Oh no," Law whispered. Was it the same "teenage" male that she'd met just hours ago? She crouched down beside the bloody body and shone her flashlight on the pale face. No. Stormhorse's eyes had been dark brown and this male had eyes of Wind Clan blue. He still looked impossibly young and vulnerable. Pat Hershel had said that it was the "babies" of the bodyguards who knew how to drive.
"He sacrificed himself," Bare Snow murmured sadly. "The metal within the car kept the Viceroy from using his domana spells. The Holy One drew the attackers to his side of the vehicle so the Viceroy could escape out the other way and use his magic."
"Why didn't his shield spell protect him?" Law panned her flashlight over the ground. There were four pug dogs scattered around him. Judging by the massive burn marks on the dogs and crisscrossing the pavement, they'd been killed by lightning. It looked like a thunderstorm had opened up a can of whoop-ass on twenty-square feet of Fairywood. The pugs had to be the little yap dogs she'd heard barking earlier. They were just tiny things; the heaviest might have been fifteen pounds. They couldn't have been what mauled the warrior.
Dozens of large bloody paw prints mapped the sekasha's death. They were larger than a warg's, didn't have the wolf-like X-shape arrangements of toes and pad, nor were there marks left by the non-retracting claws. They looked like mountain lion tracks, but those were normally only four inches across. These were nearly eight inches, meaning that the beast was freaking huge.
"The shield draws power from the local ambient magic. It can only afford so much protection. Wyverns. Black willows. Saurus. Wargs. If the beast can pin the warrior, its only a matter of time before the spell fails."
Beyond the abandoned car, the dead bodies, the bloody tracks, and the scorch marks, there was no sign of the Viceroy. Distantly she could hear a pack of animals howling. The cadence was wrong for a warg; it was much more the fast baying of excited, little dogs. The sound echoed loud and weirdly distorted. It nearly seemed like the dogs were at the bottom of well, the steep sides echoing and amplifying the howls. The sound was coming from Chartiers Creek, a half-mile or so off. She kept losing the sound of it under the rumble of a nearby freight train that followed the creek bottom to the Ohio River.
"Idiots," Bare Snow murmured. "They sprang the attack too soon. They should have waited. Once the city returns to Earth, Wolf Who Rules will be without magic, and defenseless."
The Chartiers Creek fed into the Ohio River at McKees Rocks a few miles away. The safety of the Rim lay just across the river. The only safe crossing was the McKees Rocks Bridge. There was a little known railroad bridge at Brunots Island, but she doubted the Viceroy—on the run for his life—would think of it. No, he'd head for the massive stone bridge, lit up for barges on the river and any random plane to see.
Law glanced at her phone. They had less than thirty minutes. "Those dogs are still hunting the Viceroy. They haven't caught him yet. We need to find him."
Bare Snow shook her head. "He has every reason not to trust me and none to believe you. He's too dangerous to approach. He'll kill anyone he thinks is part of this trap."
There was a sudden flash of lightning and immediate boom of thunder.
"Right. Keep our distance from the male throwing lightning."
Law had enough experience with traps to know all their frailties. Even brainless crayfish would escape their cage once all the bait was eaten. She and Bare Snow had the element of surprise on their side. The joy of being quirky odd was that, even when the jerks saw her coming, they had no idea how much trouble they were in. A lesbian, a porcupine, and an underage assassin. No, there was no way these guys knew what was about to hit them.
They caught up to the first SUV on Creek Road.
Law drove up out of Chartiers Creek just before the water deepened. She plowed through an old chain link fence and fishtailed onto the narrow gravel road that ran along the stream.
She knew she should be screaming scared, but the cool electric rush was settling in. A righteous fight was like hooking a big fish. There was a thrill in the battle. It was as addictive as any drug. These scumbags were out en masse hunting a young male and meant to frame an innocent female for his murder. She felt nothing but justified for any damage she dealt out.
She caught the gleam of lights off the creek; there was a car ahead on the road. She flicked off her headlights and used the part in the trees fringing the road, revealing the lighter night sky, to navigate. The road was narrow and rough, just a car-wide beaten path. Around a bend in the creek, where the channel narrowed and grew deeper, the road widened. One of the white SUVs was trying to turn around, taking advantage of the grassy bank where locals fished for river sharks. Even in the distance, Law could make out the lighted license plate. It was BAS-0002. It was one of the EIA unmarked cars.
She threw the Dodge into low gear and stomped on the gas. At the last moment, she blared her horn, seconds before ramming the SUV broadside. The Dodge's grill guard rammed into the lighter truck even as its driver instinctively steered away. The SUV rolled down the bank to vanish into the water, upside down. Only the gleam of its headlights marked it in the glittering darkness of the creek. The large dark figure of a river shark cut through the beams of light.
"That should keep them busy." Law backed up and straightened out on the road.
"Awesome possum." Bare Snow breathed a phrase that she must have learned from the half-elf babies.
Law flicked her lights back on and roared down the little dirt road. She knew the feeling racing through her like electricity. She got this every time she went snarling out to save some girl from a bad situation. There was no murky doubt or fear, just bold determination and a sense of right that made the rest of her life seem like she was barely alive.
She realized that up to this point, all the pressure to conform, to be what other people wanted her to be, was a huge mountain pressing down on her. It was only moments like this that she knew that regardless of
what everyone else wanted of her, when the scales shifted so that what was at stake was someone's life, that it made her life all make sense. She didn't need to live in a house, have a dog as a pet, work nine to five with a boss telling her what to do, paint her fingernails, fuss with her hair, and lust after some male that would complete her life. All that overwhelming messy little shit didn't matter anymore. She could be herself, completely and totally, and life was good.
She laughed at the knowledge that risking her life was easier than living it.
They caught the second SUV on the bare shoulder of the road, a mile down. It sat a dozen feet from the stop sign where Creek Road branched. The graveled street changed names to Thompson Avenue as it ducked under a low-slung iron railroad bridge to continue following Chartiers Creek or turned sharply and went up the hill. The SUV's interior light was on; its driver was struggling with an actual paper map. The Earth-bound freight train was rumbling over the bridge, drowning out the Dodge's approach.
The map and the train combined to explain why the SUVs were on the odd back roads. McKees Rocks was bisected by the railroad tracks. While a person on foot could scramble between the slow moving train cars, the SUVs needed to find ways under or over the train. There were only three points were a car could cross and they were nearly a mile apart. The question became: on which side of the tracks was Windwolf? The hounds were howling nearby but the sound echoed in the river valley, making it difficult to pinpoint their direction.
Luckily, Law didn't have to find Windwolf to protect him. She only had to derail his killers. She swung in a wide half-circle and rammed the SUV into the driver's door. The Dodge shuddered at the impact, but dug with all four back tires and heaved. The SUV slid on the gravel and then on the grass creek bed beyond. It tipped beyond its center of gravity and tumbled down the bank. It splashed into the dark water.
Her grandfather must be spinning up to mach speed in his grave.
Two down. Two to go. Unfortunately, with the name change, the Creek Road turned to follow the train tracks. There would be no more ramming cars into the water.
Betting that Windwolf wouldn't know McKees Rocks any better than his attackers, Law crossed under the railroad bridge. The Viceroy had to be playing a cautious game of cat and mouse, since he had no way of knowing how many people were chasing after him or how heavily armed they were. The east side of the tracks was known as the Bottoms. It was a flat and desolate area, prone to flooding during the spring thaw. Many of the buildings had been abandoned before the first Startup; part and parcel of Pittsburgh's steel mill age. The only businesses left in the area were a large railroad yard and a sprawling junkyard. It was a maze of hiding spaces. More importantly, it was the straightest path to the McKees Rocks Bridge.
Law checked the clock again. Minutes were left before Pittsburgh returned to Earth. The hunting dogs were baying close by. They were still miles from the Rim; Windwolf was going to be stranded on the wrong world. She still didn't have a good solid plan beyond "whack them hard." It probably was a good time to start thinking of one.
Obviously she needed to nail the other SUVs before the scattered pieces realized that they were under attack.
A few blocks down she found one of the Fords sitting empty under a lone streetlamp. Law tucked the Dodge in among sumac brushes growing in an old gravel parking lot, thirty feet from the Explorer. The white SUV gleamed bright in the pool of light. Its back hatch hung open, but the SUV had sat long enough for the timer on the lights to click off.
Focused on the Explorer, Law missed Bare Snow's cowboy boots coming off. She became aware that the female was undressing as the elf shimmied off her underwear. "What are you—whoa!"
This was because Bare Snow had pulled the blue sundress up over her head. Elves apparently didn't wear bras; the female was totally naked. The harsh artificial light of the streetlight gleamed on Bare Snow's white skin, picking out a delicate, nearly invisible design on her hips and abdomen. It seemed like someone had stenciled her with Celtic knots across her torso with a concealer pencil. She would have never guessed that Bare Snow had such elaborate tattoos because of how much skin that her clothes exposed, but even if she'd flashed panties, the lines would have been covered by her dresses.
"What are you doing?" Law managed as she realized that the markings were spells like the ones tattooed down the arms of the sekasha. An ink that matched Bare Snow's skin color had been used so that they were almost invisible.
"Going hunting." Bare Snow pulled out two long wooden knives. Where had she been hiding them? They looked like the sekasha's magically sharp swords. Did this mean that that the assassins of Elfhome were some kind of holy ninjas? "Stay by the car. I'll engage them."
"By yourself? It will be safer if we tag team—holy shit!"
Bare Snow had whispered something in Elvish. The spell tattooed on her body gleamed for a second and the female vanished from sight. Even the wooden knives vanished. There was a distortion on the seat like a crystal statue sat beside Brisbane.
The crystal statue blurred and vanished as Bare Snow went out the window.
Law breathed another curse in surprise and dismay. It was one thing to know that Bare Snow's mother was a trained assassin; it was another that apparently she had taken eighty-some years to teach her daughter everything she knew before she died. Worse, even if they found Windwolf, Bare Snow's profession was written on her skin. Nothing they could say could outweigh that evidence.
"Yup, stay far, far away from the Viceroy while saving him." If they did it right, it should be easy as pie. But as Widget noted: pie really wasn't that easy.
Law cautiously opened her door and stepped out of the Dodge. It was almost midnight. Night had closed in tight. Rimfire washed in ribbons of green and red over the river, marking how close they were to the border, and yet so far. The sumac bushes had taken over the parking lot of the old wire spring and form factory. Beyond the factory's low-slung modern buildings, there were rows of brick warehouses from the 1800s. The windows were a checkerboard of broken glass, empty holes and boarded over. On the other side of the street, the long train rumbled and squealed and whined to a shuddering stop. The engine must have reached the Rim, miles down the track, and was waiting for Shutdown.
Somewhere nearby was Windwolf, his stalkers, and by the sound of it, half a dozen large dogs.
Brisbane took advantage of the open door and scrambled out of the cab, grunting and grumbling at the effort. The problem with having a porcupine as a pet was trying to stop it equaled getting dozens needle-sharp quills embedded into your hand.
"Brizzy!" Law whispered. "Shit." True to his nature of being contrary, he beelined for the white SUV, grumbling loudly as he went. "Oh Jesus Christ!" Which was both profane and a very short prayer for divine intervention. "Shhhhh!"
He wouldn't be quieted any more than he'd be stopped on his waddle to the Explorer. Porcupine's grumbles sound weirdly like a baby trying to talk. She could almost imagine him trying to explain why he was going to get them all killed for the sake of something delicious he could smell in the SUV.
Law jerked her baseball bat out from behind the seat and headed for the SUV. If she could find what was luring him to the Explorer, she could use it to get him back in the Dodge. "That's it. I'm getting a dog. A little one. One I can just pick up and run with."
There was no one in sight. Not the driver of the SUV or Bare Snow. A block or two away, the dogs were howling with frustrated excitement. They'd lost Windwolf or he'd found a perch spot out of their reach. What was Bare Snow doing? Was she heading toward the dogs or was she looking for the driver?
Brisbane scrambled into the open back. He obviously was following the scent of ripe saenori. Someone else had also recently arrived from the Easternlands. The backseats were folded down and it looked like a small armory arrayed inside. There was even a shoulder mounted rocket launcher.
"Shit." Law breathed. Andre and his people had come armed for bear. She'd suddenly felt outmatched. "Brizzy. Come on.
We need to go back and get my shotgun." And maybe a Molotov cocktail.
Brisbane ignored her, digging through a travel sack tucked beside the rocket launcher. "Naaaah, nori, aaah," he muttered and as always her brain desperately wanted to translate it into something understandable. Something reasonable. Something less stupidly stupid stubborn.
Law growled. She leaned into the Explorer, carefully nudged him aside and fumbled with the fabric in the shadowed interior. "Come on. Come on." There were four of the fruits in the bag. She tossed them quickly into the weedy darkness beside the car. Complaining, Brisbane followed the fruit.
Law heard the heavy footsteps approaching; boots crunching on gravel. Bare Snow had taken off her cowboy boots. Law ducked down, gripping her baseball bat tightly. Key to a good ambush was to catch the person totally unaware and make the first hit hard as possible. It wasn't the first time she'd jumped a male with a gun, but never one this heavily armed. It wasn't the case of "a knife" or "a pistol" or "a rifle" but all of the above plus a few grenades to boot.
She rose just as he came around the back of the SUV. Bat cocked back as far as she could get it. All her strength and mass into a line drive hit. Warned by her movement, Andre started to raise the assault rifle he'd been carrying. The bat hit the rifle barrel with a crack of wood against metal. The rifle flew out of his hands, crashing into the sumacs bushes along the berm of the road.
He lashed out faster than she thought possible. She tried to roll with the punch but it was like trying to dodge lightning. His fist connected with her chin, and the night flickered to total blackness as she fell stunned to the ground. He shouted something and slapped his hand down onto her chest. There was a crinkle of paper and a flare of light and then it felt like electricity shot through her body, making her shudder.
He stomped down on her chest and pinned the paper to her as she writhed on the ground. He stared down at her like she was a pinned frog in a science class. "Who are you? You look like one of those foragers. Picking weeds and mud crabs."
