Tommy jerked his hand back off her neck and wiped it against his pants, wanting it clean. He wasn't his father. He refused to be.
Three months after he'd fled his heritage and Tinker's scrap yard, she killed Lord Tomtom, blocked the oni invasion, and kept Tommy from being beheaded. Of all his little rebellions, he would have never guessed that the most important had been wrapped around that small life. Knowing how close he came to killing her made him worry about what he should do next. It was so easy to misstep.
He took out the cash and counted it. The insurance adjustors had been generous. His family could rebuild the restaurant and still have a small nest egg. But it did nothing for the other families that looked to him for protection. He employed all the half-oni that couldn't pass as human, making sure they could make ends meet without risking being discovered. His father's warriors had always controlled his cash flow; his oni watch dogs had stripped Tommy bare before they fled. Then the elves locked down the city, shutting down his businesses. What little he had hidden away had been drained just keeping everyone fed.
If he took care of just his family, he lost the ability to do anything for the half-oni. With the loss of that power base, he would be less able to defend his family. It was a self-defeating loop. The more he tried to protect his family alone, the less he would be able to do it. Any disaster would put them at the elves' mercy. They'd go from being owned by the rabid oni to the being controlled by the rigid elves. Slavery, no matter who was the master, held unknown terrors of helplessness.
But if he used the money to restart his businesses, then it was more than enough to keep them free of elfin entanglements. The most profitable was the hoverbike races. Now that martial law had been lifted, racing could start again. Carefully managed, he could grow the seed money.
And money meant freedom.
****
John Montana ran a repair shop and makeshift gas station out of the old McKees Rocks Firehall. He also captained Team Big Sky, which had ruled the racing season until the elves locked the city down. The firehall's three tall garage doors were open to the summer night as Tommy pulled up on his hoverbike. John had a car up on the end rack. Surprisingly, his younger half-elf brother, Blue Sky, was with him. The boy was, however, practicing drawing a wooden sword and bringing it up into a guard position. It confirmed the rumors that the elves had discovered that the boy's father had been a Wind Clan sekasha and taken custody of him. Apparently they'd given John visitation rights to the brother he had raised like a son. How good of them.
John came out from under the car and greeted Tommy with a cautious look and a nod. "Blue, I'm getting hungry. Can you heat up the food you brought home from the enclave?"
Being a good kid, Blue immediately put away his sword. Blue was seventeen years old, but because of his elf heritage, he was as small and naïve as a twelve year old. "Is Tommy staying for dinner?"
"No, he's not." John mussed Blue's hair and then gave him a little push to get him moving. He waited until the boy had left before asking, "What do you want?"
Did John know that Tommy was half-oni? Of all the people in Pittsburgh, he might know, since Blue was coming and going from the Viceroy's enclave. It was hard to tell, as John had always been protective of his little brother around him.
"Elves lifted martial law," Tommy said.
"I heard."
"I'm setting odds for this weekend." Tommy leaned on his handlebars, keeping to his bike out of grudging respect for John. The man had always done right by his brother, even though he wasn't much more than a kid when they'd lost their mother. "Is Blue riding?"
John nodded. "The sekasha figured out fast that taking everything from him would only break him."
Was it good of the elves to be worried about breaking their possessions? The oni never did. Did it make the elves more compassionate, or just more careful with what belonged to them? "Letting him come back here is also to keep him from breaking?"
John pressed his mouth into a tight line, as if he'd said more on the matter than he wanted to.
"If I was you, it would piss me off." Tommy pressed for more information, wanting to know what is was like to have elves control your life. "Them taking him like that."
"Didn't say I was happy about it." John lowered the rack, dropping the car down to the garage floor. "But some of it makes sense. He likes to fight. It's why he likes to ride. And since we don't have any family here on Elfhome; they'll take care of him if something happens to me. He's going to be a kid for a long time; probably longer than I'm going to be alive."
Trust John to still be thinking of what would be best for Blue Sky even while the elves were rubbing his nose in shit. What made humans so damn noble and oni so monstrous? Was it because the oni greater bloods had bred the lesser bloods with animals? Tommy didn't like to think what that made him, but he couldn't deny the cat-like ears hidden under his bandana. And did those ears mean he could recognize nobility, admire it, but never contain it?
Tommy distracted himself by starting up his hoverbike. He had dozens of teams to visit. "Still think it sucks."
****
Since Windwolf had reduced their warren to rubble, Tommy had hidden his family away at an industrial park on the South Side. The building was large enough to hold them all, had running water and toilets, and was easily defended by a handful of people. After the luxury of the enclave, it was also very dirty and ugly. His cousin, Bingo guarded the main door. He slid the massive door aside to let Tommy ride his hoverbike into the cavernous warehouse, and then pulled it shut and threw the bar.
"Glad you're back." Bingo pulled the door shut and threw the locking bar. "I've been getting calls all day. People are asking if we're taking bets."
"I've been out to the teams." Tommy fished out his wordpad and handed it to Bingo. "Call Mason at the Post-Gazette and give him the list of teams that will be racing. Tell him we'll be starting to take bets tomorrow morning."
There was a brittle crystalline crash from the back of the warehouse. Tommy reached for his pistol then stopped as he realized Bingo looked only mildly disgusted by the noise.
"What's that?" Tommy asked.
Bingo shouldered his rifle. "Numbnuts got Aunt Flo knocked up last time he boinked her—just before Windwolf turned him into an oni candle."
"Shit, again?"
His cousins were all mildly terrified of Aunt Flo, even though their oni blood made most of them nearly two feet taller than her. The more the oni humbled her, the more she would rage at his cousins. Tommy suspected her fury was the main reason she'd survived where his mother hadn't. If he didn't stop her, she was capable of breaking all their dishware. Sighing, he headed to the back of the warehouse.
They had salvaged what they could from the restaurant, including the dishes. They had nailed up shelves to the back wall and stacked the survivors there. Aunt Flo had worked through rice bowls and was now throwing bread plates.
"Stop that," Tommy snapped. "We'll need those to start up the restaurant again."
She flinched away from him, shielding herself with the plate.
"I'm not going to hit you." Tommy wanted to though, just for thinking he might. She read the anger on his face and continued to quail. "Throw the last one, and then clean up the mess."
Reassured that he wouldn't act, she let loose her anger again. "I didn't want another baby!" She flung the plate against the wall. It shattered, its pieces raining down to a pile of broken china. "I'm sick of babies! You could have stopped him!" She turned to flail harmlessly at him. "You stood there and let him finish and then you killed him! You should have just killed him when he first walked in!"
He caught her wrist and controlled himself so he didn't hurt her, despite his growing anger. "He had his warriors with him. Did you want us all dead just to save you from. . .what? Doing what he'd done a hundred times before? We're free of oni now. This time, you can go to the human doctors and have an abortion."
The fight went out of her and she started to cry, which on
ly made him angrier, because he'd been helpless to protect her in the first place. It had been Windwolf that killed the oni, not him. She clenched the front of his shirt with both hands, seeking comfort from him as she sobbed. The herd of his younger cousins thundered pass, all shrieking loud enough to wake the dead, the one in the lead with some treasured toy that all the rest wanted.
God, he needed a drink
****
There were a billion things that needed his attention if the races were to happen. He and his cousins worked out how much of the seed money had to go to operating expenses and how much could be risked in betting. They would need to pay wages, stock the food concessions, and put aside tax money. True, they'd double their amount with the admission fees, but the money had to be spent upfront first. Lastly, some cash had to be spent immediately so that various families didn't starve before race day. Luckily the entrance fees covered the purse money for the winners, so that money didn't need to be held in reserve. They set the starting odds, downloaded the spreadsheet to Tommy's workpad, and made sure their phones all worked.
"Remember, your cap is five hundred." Tommy paced the room. "Anything above that, call me first. We have to watch our bottom line closely on this one, so call in after every bet. The elves are jumpy; keep your guns out of sight. Watch your back. Remember that there are some oni still out there loose."
"Danny. Yoyo. Zippo. Quinn." He tapped the chests of the teenagers as he passed them. "You're to guard the warren. If the elves know where we are, the oni might too. They might raid us for food, money, and sex. Call Bingo if you see anyone suspicious. He'll be stationed closest to the warren. If you're raided, don't give them any reason to kill you. Remember, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
"This is just like before—only this time, we're doing it for ourselves."
****
All day his phone rang, giving Tommy a constant barometer of Pittsburgh to be entered into his spreadsheets. True there were some names he recognized as die-hard gamblers. They carefully weighed the odds, dispassionate in their choices. The rest of the city, however, bet with their hearts.
The elves bet on Blue Sky without exception. They believed the holy sekasha-caste were perfection made flesh, and having seen the half-elf race, Tommy wasn't sure if he'd quibble with that.
The human population splintered into a multitude of factions. The younger crowd that thought of Elfhome as their world bet on Team Tinker or Team Big Sky. John's team had the most recent wins, their custom-modified Delta hoverbike, and their "perfect" rider. Team Tinker was still a strong contender even though Oilcan wasn't as aggressive a rider as Tinker used to be. Team Tinker had the experience and the only other Delta. While the team was all humans, Tinker had been magically transformed into an elf and married to Windwolf which tainted the team through association.
The older humans didn't bet on either of the top two teams. They saw Pittsburgh as still a city of Earth and men. They supported the underdogs, if they bet on the next layer of teams. Then under that, came bets on teams connected to certain political ideology, or someone just had a lucky feeling for, but usually only to place, not to win.
He was out at the race track, when he realized that his phone had stopped ringing. He took it out and checked on the signal strength. "Trixie, is your phone working?" he asked the half-oni in charge of the food concessions.
She took hers out and glanced at it. "Huh, no signal."
He went up to the track office and picked up the landline. It was dead too.
Trixie had followed him. "What do you think it is?"
"The oni might be attacking town." He swore. "Last thing we need is to have the elves slap martial law back on."
"Well, we'll be eating hotdogs for the next two weeks."
He picked up the microphone to the race track's PA system. "I'm heading into town, do we need anything out here?"
There was a call from somewhere near the concession booths.
"What was that?" Trixie's hearing was as human as her ears appeared.
"Toilet paper." Tommy tied his bandana back into place and headed out to his hoverbike.
****
"I've been trying to call you." Babe held out a list of bets.
"All the phones are down." Tommy entered the information into his spreadsheet. Babe had only taken four bets, one at the five hundred dollar cap for Team Providence to win. It was a fairly new team made up of tengu, having only run a half-dozen races, and never even placed. None of Tommy's information suggested that they could pull a win off. They were such a longshot that the large bet required an immediate adjustment to the odds. "Shit, what a hell of a time for the phones to go down."
He didn't recognize the name: Kenji Toshihiko. Most the Japanese in town, though, were part of the tengu. "I don't like this taking bets blind. Spread the word: I'm closing the books."
Abby had a five hundred bet for Team Providence. And Syn too. Tommy swore and ran numbers right there. If all of his cousins had taken bets at their cap, locking in the same longshot odds, and Team Providence won, then his family were going to be royally screwed. Not only did it take out all the money they set aside to cover the bets, it also would eat up all the money that the race would bring in with admissions.
He checked his phone. It was still dead.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Tommy punched Syn in fury.
"We'll just call the bets off." Syn scrambled out of the way of a kick.
"We can't!" Tommy shouted. "The fucking anal elves and their frigging honor! A bet is a promise to them! If we welshed on the bets, they'd be all over our asses because they know we're half-oni!"
"Someone is suckering us!"
"Don't you think that I know that? I'm going to fucking find them and kill them. Spread the word. No more bets!"
****
Whoever planned the strike against them had done it with great precision. It had only taken an hour to close down the books but the damage had already been done. Twenty bets, all at cap, all made within minutes of the phones going dead. Ten thousand dollars with a payoff of half a million dollars.
"The bets are to win," Bingo pointed out as they gathered at the warren.
"Because to 'show' and 'place' gave lower odds," Tommy snapped.
"How the hell do they expect Team Providence to win?" Bingo said. "Team Big Sky was creaming everyone before the elves locked the city down. And there's Team Tinker, and Team Banzai and Team Eh?"
Tommy had talked to all the teams. They assured him that they were all racing. Some of them might have been lying, in on the scam, but not Team Tinker nor Team Big Sky. They were tied too closely to the honorable elves to cheat, and they were the favorites to win. "Whoever the hell they are, they've got something else planned then. They're going to cheat somehow. We've got to find out how."
****
They stormed the garage of Team Providence first. The building was completely empty of everything, even dust.
"We just not let them race!" Syn said as Bingo sniffed around the room, trying to find a scent.
Bingo shook his head. "They waited until the Post Gazette listed the teams. We provided the list after the teams all paid the entrance fee. The elves would see that as a contractual promise. . ."
"Fuck the elves." Tommy snarled. "Okay, so to hit all of us at once, there had to be at least twenty of them. Was any of them part of Team Providence?"
His cousins shook their heads.
"Thirty tengu. We only need one. One little bird to sing."
****
The tengu had at one time had been humans that lost their way onto Onihida through natural gateways. Gathered into one mountain tribe, they were conquered by an oni greater blood, who merged the survivors with the crows feeding on the dead. Typical oni stupidity--use what was at hand and not worry about the consequences. Thus the tengu were clever with languages, attracted to bright and shiny things--and tended to flock together against their enemies. Like Tommy, the tengu had thrown in with the elves during th
e last battle, and won their limited freedom.
The Four and Twenty was the tengu bar in town. On a Friday night, it was crowded with tengu. Wading into it would have been an invitation for a full out war, with a good possibility of the tengu they wanted not even being in the crowd.
Tommy didn't have his father's talent, who was able to make groups of people see anything he wanted them to see. Lord Tomtom's ability to pass an army invisibly through a crowd was the reason his father had been chosen to oversee the invasion of Elfhome. Tommy couldn't completely mask a moving object from multiple watchers. With stage props, dark lighting, and concentration, though, he could pass as someone else in a crowded space.
He tore up one of his T-shirts to match the backless style favored by the tengu. With matte black paint, they painted a close approximation to the spell that was tattooed onto the back of every tengu. His black hair needed no work, but he wore a hat to pull low, to cover the fact his nose wasn't a large hooked beak.
He startled Bingo at the door on his way out.
"Tommy?" Bingo sniffed a few times to verify his scent. "Why Riki?"
"He has some influence, so I'm going to use it. Besides, I can nail him cold." Riki Shoji was the nephew of the tengu spiritual leader, Jin Wong. The oni had used him to control the tengu. They had worked with Riki during the summer, serving as a go-between as he spied for the oni.
"How are you going to know he's not in the Four and Twenty already?"
"You're going to sniff around the outside first. Still remember his scent?"
"Yeah, I can do that."
****
Four and Twenty was in the Strip District, giving Tommy reason to suspect that the tengu village was north of Pittsburgh. Tengu would fly in out of the dark on wings of glossy black feathers. With a word, they would cancel the spell that created their wings and walk into the bar. While Tommy masked them from the tengu coming and going, Bingo sniffed around both the front door and the back.
"Riki doesn't seem to be here, Tommy." Bingo drifted back into the shadows across the street. "Be careful. If you need me, just yell."
Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 3 October 2006 Page 19
