Tinker (7 page)

The largest one seemed to be the leader. He took her ID but dismissed it and her in a glance. Nor did he hand it back. She noticed that he also had Oilcan's papers.

"Check the trailer," the leader told the smallest guard, although that was a relative "small." "See if the little bird was right. Get the car," he ordered the remaining guard, who moved off into the night. "I want to be gone when this is done."

The smallest guard grabbed the door frame and levered himself up into the trailer, barely squeezing through the door. His nose worked like a dog's. "It smells like a slaughterhouse in here."

"We're transporting a wounded elf." Tinker backed away from him, keeping out of range of an easy grab. "We're taking him to the hospice as soon as Startup happens. Wargs chewed him up. He got blood everywhere. That's what you smell." She sniffed to see if it was really that noticeable, and caught his scent.

Smoke and sandalwood.

The guard saw Windwolf. His eyes narrowed, and he grinned savagely. "He is here," he rumbled to the leader. "Laid out like the dead. Easy prey."

"Do them all," the leader ordered. "Quietly."

Tinker yanked out the pistol, sliding between the guard and Windwolf. "Don't touch him! Touch him and I'll shoot you! Get back! Get out!"

"Tinnnker?" Oilcan asked quietly in the startled silence that followed, and then started the flatbed's engine. "I don't know what you're doing, but you'd better do it quick! The one outside just waved down some kind of backup in an unmarked car."

The smallest guard started to move toward her and she fired a warning shot over his shoulder. He jerked backward like it had hit him.

"Get out!" She fought to keep her voice firm. "This is your last chance! Go!" Amazingly, the small guard tumbled out of the trailer, almost onto the leader, and they both scrambled away. She'd never felt so huge before. She slammed the door, bolted it, and raced back across the trailer, yelling, "Drive! Drive! Drive!"

The flatbed lurched forward, roaring up through first. "Tinker, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it! The car is cutting me off! Oh shit!"

A black sedan had raced past them on the left and was swinging right to cut them off. Oilcan was already slowing down when Tinker hit the window. She slid through the window, down into his lap, and jammed her foot down on top of his.

"Just go!" she shouted. "Shift!"

Swearing, Oilcan stomped down on the clutch, threw the truck into second, and let up on the clutch. "Watch the car!"

"I am watching it!" she shouted, nailing the gas pedal to the floor. The big truck leapt forward, caught the sedan at the front bumper, and smashed it aside. The flatbed shuddered at the impact and then shrugged it off, roaring forward.

They had been down a side street, and needed to turn onto Centre Avenue to reach the border. They were going too fast, hough, for her to turn the truck alone. "Help me turn!"

Together they cranked the steering wheel through the sharp right turn onto Centre Avenue. There was a stop sign on the other side of the intersection. They mounted the curb, flattened the sign, and swung through the rest of the turn.

"That was a stop sign, Tink!" Oilcan complained.

"Yes! It was!" she growled. "Will you shut up? I'm thoroughly pissed off, and I don't need you complaining to me!"

They hadn't hit the sedan hard enough. It came sweeping up behind them, front panel gone and showing undercarriage.

The flatbed topped second gear.

"Shift!" Tink called, easing minutely up on the gas. Oilcan clutched and shifted up to third.

The sedan took the moment to leap ahead, veering into their path again.

"Fuck them!" Tink growled and elbowed Oilcan in the stomach as he started to turn the wheel. She stomped on the gas, and the flatbed roared straight at the sedan. "Eat this!"

She hadn't grown up in the scrap yard without knowing the strength of the vehicle under her. Built heavy enough to carry over ten tons, backed with a 250-horsepower engine, it was a close cousin to a bulldozer. She aimed at the sedan's back panel, knowing that the car would pivot on its engine block. The sedan spun like a child's toy as they hit.

The narrow strip of no-man's-land of the Rim was now only a block before them. Beyond it was a tall chain-link fence and the Oakland of Earth rising up in full glory.

"Oh shit, it's not Startup yet!" Tinker cried.

"Two more minutes," Oilcan said.

"Damn!" Tinker slammed the brakes. The big truck fought her more than when she'd hit the car, the wheels locking up, slewing them sideways. She sent up a quick prayer that the bolts on the trailer held.

Oilcan yelped and caught the clutch before the engine stalled out. "What are we going to do?"

The guards were swarming forward to intercept her the moment they stopped. Behind them, the sedan was gamely straightening out.

"Shift!" Tinker said.

"Shift to what?"

"Reverse." She shoved his hand aside and worked the gear shift into reverse. "Hold on."

They started backward, gathering speed. She watched her side mirrors as the sedan this time scrambled out of the way. The flatbed shot past its bumper by inches. Would they chase? No, they seemed confused.

"A minute," Oilcan intoned.

A block. Two. Four blocks, and she said, "Okay, let's stop."

They shifted back to first and sat, their feet arrayed across all the pedals. Far off, so faint Tinker barely heard it over the rumble of the flatbed engine, came the ringing of St. Paul's bells.

"This is it," Oilcan breathed.

"One hopes," Tinker said.

Void. The odd sense of falling without moving. All the streetlights flickered out, and only their headlights cut the sudden darkness. The chain-link fence and Oakland vanished. The primal forests of Elfhome and the elfin enclaves lining the border took their place. The aurora effect gleamed directly overhead, dancing along the gate's curving veil.

"Let's go!" Tinker nailed the gas pedal.

The gate remained closed. The guards, gathered to watch her wild driving, scattered, except one fool waving like he thought she'd stop. Tinker reached up, caught the pull on the air horn, and blared her intention to barrel through. Said fool took the warning.

The gate was wood, and it sheared off with a sharp crack. The enclaves on either side of the road formed a chute of tall stone walls, three hundred feet in length, and then they plunged into the dark woods.

She had driven the road before, knew it to be a straight path. Roads on Elfhome were mostly fitted stone, following ley lines, acting as both road and power source. Unlike the wide-berm, multi-lane highways of Earth, they were more like paths. Branches scraped along the roof of the trailer and threatened to take out her mirrors.

Tinker leaned up. "See if you can check Windwolf. I don't have him strapped down back there."

Oilcan slid out from under her, squeezed through the window, and called, "He's fine. There are cars coming."

Reaally? Imagine that! 
 

The side mirrors polarized to keep the car's headlights from blinding her completely. "I see them."

"We're in shit trouble, Tink."

"I know." She was determined not to be sidetracked into being upset. "We get through this, and then I'll worry about the mess."

The hospice was two miles in. Luckily the road remained too narrow for the EIA cars to try cutting them off. She geared down to make the turn into the hospice parking lot, swung the flatbed around, and backed up to the hospice's door as the EIA cars swarmed about her like gnats, hemming the truck in on the sides and front.

A moment later, and EIA men clung to every surface of the truck, pointing guns at her through the windows. Tinker raised her hands.

They hit her with a police override, and the door locks thunked up. They jerked the door open.

"I've got a wounded elf in—" she started to say, but finished with a yelp of surprise as they plucked her out of the seat.

"Tinker!" Oilcan shouted from the back.

"There's a wounded elf in back!" she said.

They pushed her up against the flatbed's hot hood, face down, and twisted her hands behind her back. Pain flared from her wounded hand. She couldn't bite back the cry of hurt.

"Tinker!" Oilcan threw open the back door and was yanked down himself. A moment later he was slammed up against the hood beside her. "She's hurt!" he growled. "Be careful with her!"

There were elves among the men. She could hear the rapid bark of Elvish. A man was leaning his weight into her back, while frisking her.

"She's got a shoulder holster on!" the man shouted in warning. "They've got a pistol someplace."

The gun! Where had she dropped it? It was lost in a blur of events.

He reached her pants pockets and started to upload them onto the high hood. "Damn, she's carrying a household."

"We haven't done anything except protect our patient," Tinker said, trying to turn to face him.

"Shut up, punk." He pulled her backwards and then slammed her against the hood again.

"Leave her alone!" Oilcan shouted.

The guard turned, nightstick upraised. Tinker shouted wordlessly in protest.

Then everything went silent and still. An elf had hold of the nightstick, and there were others, armed and hard-eyed, ringing them.

"They're not to be harmed," the elf said in Low Elvish. "Wolf Who Rules has placed them under his protection."

"
Naekanain
," Mr. Nightstick said, slurring the word as if he'd learned the phrase by rote.
I do not understand.
 

"They have brought Wolf Who Rules here to be cared for," the elf clarified in Low Elvish. "He asked me to protect the young humans. I will not let them be harmed."

"What's he saying?" Mr. Nightstick asked the woman beside him.

"He's saying, 'Hands off the kids or we'll break your face.' Get the cuffs off them."

* * *

It quickly became apparent that there were two types of armed elves present. Hospice security appeared to be
laedin
caste, in camouflage green and browns done with elfin flare for fashion. They carried bows and spell-arrows and interceded between the humans of the EIA and Windwolf's personal security—which was all higher-born
sekasha
caste, armed to the teeth and thoroughly peeved. Even the hospice healers seemed intimidated by the
sekasha
, taking care to make no threatening moves as Windwolf was shifted off the worktable onto a stretcher and then handed out the trailer. The cousins were kept back, out of the way, as the healers and the
sekasha
carried the injured elf into the hospice.

By then, news of the cousins' arrival with Windwolf must have reached the enclaves that lined Elfhome's side of the Rim; elves drifted out of the darkness to gather in the parking lot. They were largely ignored by everyone, but seemed satisfied with swapping information among themselves. Only one rated attention from the guards; she drifted out of the woods like a will-o'-the-wisp, a gleaming beauty who made Tinker extremely aware of how short, dirty, and scruffy she herself really was in comparison. Obviously one of the high caste, the female crossed the parking lot and stopped one of the hospice guards with a touch of her luminous hand. The two made an effective roadblock, preventing the cousins and their joint elf/human guard from entering the hospice.

"Wolf Who Rules has been found?" the female asked in High Elvish. The guard bowed low and answered in a rapid flow of high tongue that Tinker couldn't follow. (Tinker had always found the more formal language to be too tedious and pretentious to become fluent in it.) She did catch, however, the female's name: Saetato-fohaili-ba-taeli. Roughly, it meant "Sparrow Lifted By Wind" though the "Saetato" could indicate soaring rather than lifted. While the female did not seem the type to take a human nickname, she would probably be called Sparrow.

As if collateral damage from Sparrow's beauty were not enough, the guard indicated the cousins, and Sparrow turned her stunning regard their way. From ankle-length hair, so pale blond it was nearly silver, with ribbons and flowers worked through it, to her tall lithe body encased in softly gleaming fairy silk of pale green, she was perfection taking humanoid form.

"These two wood sprites?" A soft musical laugh as eyes of deep emerald studied the cousins.

The guard clicked his tongue, the elfin way of shrugging, and added something about Windwolf putting them under his protection.

"Yes, of course." Sparrow clicked her tongue against straight pearly teeth and drifted away.

* * *

Minutes later the cousins were alone, under joint human/elf guard, in a waiting room, holding mugs of hot chai. Oilcan was quietly shaking off the adrenaline, which left Tinker plenty of time to think. They had done it—kept Windwolf alive all of Shutdown Day and delivered him to safety. With all of Pittsburgh, why though, had he ended up in her scrap yard? Just stupid luck, or had the life debt between them somehow guided him to her? And now what? Did he disappear out of her life again, until the next monster and the next life-or-death fight?

She touched her breast pocket to feel the spell within. If she got a moment alone with Windwolf, it might be the last time she could ever cast the spell. Even if she was sure the spell wouldn't harm him, did she want to sever the link? She scoffed at herself; what did she know of him except that he was arrogant? Strong. Brave. Altruistic. Honorable. Beautiful. That he was capable of wit and patience even while enduring great pain, facing probable death. And he was possibly a great lover.

The door swung open, and a man came in as if he ruled the place. He could nearly pass as an elf. He was tall, sleek, had blond hair drawn back into a braid, and was stylishly dressed from painted silk duster to tall, polished boots. He checked himself at the sight of the cousins huddled on the couch. Finally, the man let out his breath loudly and glanced at his PDA. "Which one of you is Oilcan, and which is Tinker?"

"I'm Tinker," she answered. "He's Oilcan."

He crossed the room to tower over them. "Brother and sister?"