Project Elfhome

by Wen Spencer

  She bolted awake with Chesty nosing her face.

  “I’m fine!” She pushed him away and sat up. Her alarm clock read six in the morning with the sky just lightening with dawn. Hal’s soft snores invaded the normal quiet of her house. “I’ll be even better when I get rid of all these men.”

  She stomped across the hall and pounded on Hal’s door and got an “I’m up!” yelped in reply. She stalked down the hallway, shouting, “Daylight is wasting, ladies! Time to get up!”

  She wasn’t prepared to find Taggart already in the kitchen. Judging by the smell, he had made coffee and toast. He wore low-slung pajama bottoms and had been standing in front of the bank of televisions she’d set up so she could watch all three Pittsburgh channels at once.

  He had dark curls on his chest that matched his long black mane, which only served to underscore her first impression of “wild man.” Judging by his muscled abdomen, he visited a gym often in New York. She could also tell in a glance that she was very much into dark-haired wild men.

  She opened her mouth to tell him to get dressed and nothing coherent came out.

  He gazed at her with open worry. “Are you okay?”

  “Just…just…” Needed to remember that she was extremely pissed at him for invading her life. “I had a nightmare.”

  He quirked an eyebrow.

  “Lawn gnomes had taken Hal. I couldn’t find him.”

  “Ah, so you don’t really hate him?”

  She was caught off guard by the question. “No! Why would you say that?”

  “Friendship is a rare beast in our line. Most people only fake it.”

  “I don’t fake anything.”

  “I’m starting to understand that.” His gaze made her blush because it seemed to suggest he was into tall blondes. Then again, most men were, at least at first meeting. Usually after they met her father’s ghost, though, they realized that tall and blond only stretched so far.

  “Tell me, who exactly is Tinker?” He nodded toward the televisions.

  All three channels were covering the same story from slightly different perspectives. Jane swore as the details filtered in, painful in the familiar cadence, as if time had wound back eight years. Vanished without a trace. No witnesses. Missing since yesterday. Jumpfish and river sharks made finding a body unlikely.

  “Oh, God.” The cameras of the news crews picked out all the same trappings as when Boo disappeared. The police cars. The EIA river patrol boats. The family waiting on the shore for news. The only difference this time was that it was elves gathered into a protective circle. The viceroy’s face was full of unbearable grief.

  “You know him?” Taggart asked.

  “Her. Tinker is a girl.” Not much older than what Boo would be now, if Boo was still alive. “Everyone knows her. She’s famous.” Jane thought of all the photos of the muddy hoverbike racer that they had sent Network. In every one of them, Tinker had blazed glorious. Determined in battle. Joyous at her wins. Grinning even in defeat.

  “I’m sorry,” Taggart said quietly, and Jane realized that there was a tear rolling down her cheek.

  “I don’t really know her.” Jane wiped at her face. “She’s just eighteen; she’s still just a kid.” According to certain juvenile betting pools, Tinker had barely started to date before meeting the viceroy. “But Pittsburgh is a small town. Everyone has dozens of points of commonality. My cousins are on her crew. My younger brother hangs out with her cousin. My mechanic’s little brother is her best friend.”

  The impending ripple of grief moving through the city, touching everyone, made Jane’s throat tighten up. She focused instead on the chaos on the screen trying to understand when and where Tinker had disappeared. Last Jane had heard, Tinker had been building something out beyond the Rim. How had she disappeared with all those people at her beck and call? She wasn’t a first grader with five older brothers to distract everyone. Tinker might be barely five foot tall but her personality expanded to fill the room. Jane had noticed that any time she’d crossed paths with Tinker, everyone in the area had tracked her movement.

  Maddeningly none of the three reporters were actually covering what had happened. Chloe Polanski hated working with a crew (and from what Jane had heard, the feeling was mutual) and used an eyepiece camera. Her shots were either close-ups of herself or confusing sweeps of the river. The woman was good for interviews but sucked when there wasn’t a warm body to tear into pieces. Kimberly Shotts was going for the human-interest angle and her cameraman stayed focused on the viceroy. Only Mark Webster’s cameraman was showing enough of the surroundings for Jane to get her bearings as to where the elves and humans were gathering. They seemed to be at the old Greyhound parking lot off of Second Avenue, about six hundred feet from the footings of the 10th Street Bridge.

  Jane swore as Mark’s camera showed the wreckage of Tinker’s famous hoverbike in the emergency pull-off lane of 376, just feet from the Monongahela River. “What the hell did she hit?”

  As if to answer her, the camera panned upwards to the Boulevard of the Allies at the top of the cliff beside Second Avenue. The drop from the highway above was straight down several hundred feet.

  “Looks like she went off the cliff,” Taggart said.

  “Not by accident,” Jane said. “She could make a hoverbike do anything. She could fly…”

  Jane realized that Mark was showing the edge of Mercy Hospital. “Oh, freaking hell.”

  She scrambled to her camera charging station. She’d swapped out memory cards before stowing her camera in the truck. If Hal had actually recorded anything yesterday, it would be the only thing on the fresh card.

  The first thing was Hal’s “call” to the studio. She had missed out on him thanking her profusely for her promise to come and get him.

  “Thank you, Jane. You wonderful, wonderful girl. A true goddess! You magnificent Valkyrie! I love you…”

  She hit fast forward, swearing softly, as she started to burn with embarrassment because Taggart had followed her from the televisions.

  “Is that your main camera?”

  “It’s our only camera.”

  “That ancient thing? I thought you were the top show.”

  “Welcome to Pittsburgh,” she growled. The truth was that Hal killed too many cameras to let PB&G have the newer equipment, not that what Mark’s crew were using could be consider state of the art. Jane paused as she found Hal’s “big bird.” Hal wasn’t the best cameraman so it blurred in and out of focus. At first the scale was impossible to judge until a hoverbike suddenly soared out into the air near it. The rider and bike separated even as they both plunged toward the ground.

  Jane gasped in horror. The rider was Tinker. Falling.

  The black bird dove and caught Tinker in midair. Only did then the size of the creature become obvious. It was huge.

  “What is that?” Taggart asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a bird this big.”

  “Is it a bird?”

  “I don’t think it’s a wyvern. Its wings look feathered. Wyverns are lizardlike with batwings.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “There’s a wyvern stuffed in the Carnegie Museum, just down the hall from the dinosaurs. Every other year in school we went there for a field trip because there’s not much else to see in Pittsburgh.”

  Tinker thrashed in the bird’s hold and then went heart-stoppingly limp. The black bird flapped away. Hal attempted to keep the bird in sight with zoom and things blurred in and out of focus again.

  Swearing, Jane pulled the chip out of the camera and slotted it into her home video editor. She flipped through the frames until she found the cleanest shot of the creature.

  “Does that look like a winged man to you?” Jane said.

  “What exactly do these oni look like?”

  “Tall. Strong. Red haired. No one said anything about wings.”

  “So there’s another player in town.”

  Jane cursed, dropping F bombs, and she f
ound the clearest picture of Tinker being caught by the winged man and sent it to her printer. “They’re searching the river for her body and she never went into the water.”

  “Congrats on the scoop.”

  “Scoop, hell.” Jane snatched the picture off the printer. “We’re telling her family what really happened to her.”

  “Really?” He looked surprised and pleased by the news.

  Jane pointed across the room at the center television where the camera dwelled on the viceroy’s open grief. “He thinks his bride went into a river full of man-eating fish. If anyone should know that Tinker was still alive, it should be him.”

  * * *

  It was like having two children in the car with her. Okay, one child and a young adult that kept backsliding. Hal was attempting to prove he was really only eight years old. Taggart could resist the taunting part of the time. Nigel was the senile grandmother who never noticed that the children were fighting. He sat in the backseat, smiling serenely at the passing landscape. What made things worse was that Taggart called shotgun so he could film through the front window. That made it so she couldn’t reach Hal to swat him into silence. She found herself tempted to hit Taggart just because he was beside her. And because he’d changed into a dark blue silk shirt and cologne that smelled so good she just wanted to roll in it.

  “I can kill us all,” Jane growled, gripping the wheel tightly, and resisted the urge to drive the production truck into the ditch to prove her point.

  Somehow they reached downtown without her killing anyone.

  The EIA had Hummers blocking the on-ramp to 376 and then again at Second Avenue where it ducked under the Boulevard of the Allies. She avoided the EIA for the outsiders that they were. She cut up Forbes Avenue to the Armstrong Tunnels. There was a Pittsburgh police cruiser and a wooden barrier blocking the inbound lane. Luckily it was Bo Pedersen. He started to wave her away until she rolled down the window. The motion turned into a greeting.

  “Didn’t recognize the truck. What happened to yours? Hal blow it up?”

  “I didn’t do a thing to our truck, Bowman!” Hal shouted from the backseat, leaving out that he’d set himself and a good portion of the neighborhood on fire.

  “He’s still on pain meds,” Jane said.

  Bo laughed. “Yeah, I heard that Hal set himself on fire yesterday.”

  Hal started to say something. Jane held up a hand to silence him without looking. Now that they’d stopped moving, she could and would climb into the backseat to beat him. Judging by his quiet, he knew this.

  “I need through, Bo,” Jane said.

  Bo shook his head. “The elves are on the warpath, Jane, and that means EIA is being pissy about who has access.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Bo. Just open the gate and let me through, or I’ll drop Hal on you and let you babysit him.”

  “Hey, hey!” Bo backed away. “My wife’s expecting. I’m going to be a daddy. You keep Hal.”

  “Congrats, Bo. Tell Patty to let me know if she wants my place for the baby shower.” The price of taking over Hyeholde was constantly being asked to host family weddings, showers, and birthday parties. Since every single party triggered old nightmares, she hated the invasions. Still, if offering up her house would get her through the tunnel, she would just have to suffer.

  Bo’s huge smile indicated she’d just made someone very happy. “Will do!” He glanced toward the tunnel. “I suppose since WQED is on the ‘approved’ list, I can let you in. Just be careful! Tie Hal down or something.”

  “Thanks! I just might do that.” Jane waited for him to move the barrier and then drove into the tunnel.

  “I take it you know him,” Taggart murmured.

  “His wife is my second cousin.” Far enough out that Patty probably wouldn’t have asked Jane but would be overjoyed at the invitation.

  “Jane is related to everyone,” Hal said.

  “Not everyone,” Jane growled. “It just seems that way. Most of the people who stayed in Pittsburgh after the first Startup did so because they had a shitload of family staying. My family on both sides has been here for hundreds of years.”

  “Anyone that she’s not related to went to high school with her or one of her five brothers.”

  Boo would have started high school soon. No one would have the chance to sit beside her in class, write in her yearbook, or ask her to the prom.

  At the end of the tunnel, Jane turned left onto Second Avenue and drove down to the parking lot. The elves were still clustered around the viceroy by the river’s edge. At a safe distance were the human camps: the police, the EIA, and, of course, the news crews. Jane really didn’t want to park near the reporters. They were bored and looking for something of interest. Taggart and Nigel were something new. If she avoided the reporters, though, it would be like blood in shark-infested water. She pulled in and parked beside the WQED news van.

  Leaving Chesty to guard the CBM truck, she got out with her camera in hand. Hopefully she could get to the viceroy without attracting attention. The more people who knew that she wanted to talk to him, the more likely she would be blocked by them. After the news crews there were ranks of police, the EIA, and the viceroy’s guards.

  Complicating her attempt was the fact that Hal, Taggart and Nigel chose to trail behind her. Mark Webster already knew everything about Taggart and Nigel. He recognized their truck and waved in uninterested greeting. Kimberly Shotts was intent on filming the elves. She glanced over, saw Mark wave and dismissed them.

  Chloe Polanski, however, locked on target. She was the type of person that gave reporters bad names.

  “What are you and Hal doing here?” Chloe closed on them quickly. “You’re not news—unless you run over your own cameraman.”

  “That was an accident,” Hal said.

  “Hal!” Jane tried to get around the woman but Chloe kept shifting at the same time, blocking her. “It’s none of your business what we’re doing here, Chloe.”

  “I want to know because I am news. What do you two walking accidents think you’re going to do? Help kill river sharks?” There was a huge booming explosion and water fountained upwards nearly a hundred feet and came raining down with dozens of silvery fish of all sizes. “Because the viceroy is doing well enough on his own.”

  “It’s none of your damn business,” Jane repeated, gripping her left fist tight. She normally didn’t hit women, but normally women didn’t need hitting. Chloe had been a bitch after Boo had disappeared, something Jane had worked hard to ignore at the time. She’d been under the mistaken impression that news coverage would actually help find Boo. All it did was make everyone in Pittsburgh think her mother was a horrible person, her mother included.

  Chloe flicked her gaze down to Jane’s fist and smirked. “What? Are you actually going to try and hit me? You do realize I’m filming this?”

  Jane snapped her fingers over her shoulder at Taggart, trusting that he still had his camera in hand. “Film this. There, now so are we.” She gave her camera to Hal. “Either get out of my way or I’m going through you.”

  “Oh, the college dropout is going to try and make me move.”

  “Was that supposed to make me mad? I’ve seen your interviews, Chloe; you can do better than that.” Jane gave a “come on” with both hands. “You want to fight, we can fight.”

  Chloe smirked and shifted into a karate stance. Being that the reporter knew all about Jane’s upbringing and high school sports medals, her confidence could only mean that she was even better trained.

  For a moment Jane was sure that she was about to get her ass kicked but was equally sure that if she could get one good punch landed on Chloe’s face, it would all be worth it. But then Chloe dropped out of ready stance and slid sideways, alarm filling her face.

  Jane shifted, bracing for whatever third party was joining the “discussion.”

  One of the viceroy’s bodyguards was suddenly in their midst, a tall female with her hair dyed the same color as the protective spells ta
ttooed down her arms like Celtic knots. Anyone with half a brain cell skittered backwards, hands raised in the universal sign of being unarmed. The female elf was one of the sekasha-caste, a holy warrior thought to be perfect, and had the freedom to kill anyone that pissed her off.

  “What’s going on here?” the female snapped in English that sounded pure Pittsburgh.

  “We have something that the viceroy needs to see,” Jane said.

  “It’s important that I see it.” The female held out her hand.

  Jane reluctantly gave her the photograph of the winged man holding Tinker. There was no way she could fight her way past the female.

  The warrior stared at the photo and then gave Jane a hard look. “If this is faked, I’ll kill you myself. How did you get it? When was it taken?”

  “I took it!” Hal leaped forward. “I was at the hospital.” He pointed at his raccoon eyes as evidence. “And I was completely stoned. Still am slightly. Pain medication. Makes me all loopy.”

  “Hal,” Jane cried, “you’re going to get yourself killed!”

  The female caught Hal’s chin with her hand and turned his head this way and that. “You’re the silly grass man.”

  “Yes!” Hal cried and then, “No! I’m not silly.”

  “Yes, you are,” Jane growled. “Trust me on that. That’s a single frame of a video he took while he was in the hospital.”

  “Why didn’t you come forward earlier?” the warrior snapped.

  “Because he was drugged, I thought he had only imagined a giant bird. I didn’t hear about Tinker’s disappearance until this morning. Once I realized that she went off the Boulevard right beside the hospital and that Hal had a clear view of that, I checked the footage. When we realized what it showed, we came straight here.”

  “We want to see this video.”

  * * *

  Jane had never been this close to Viceroy Windwolf before. All the elves she knew were young looking; immortality made them practically ageless. Surrounded by his hardened warriors, though, Windwolf looked like a lost boy.