His grandfather always said that you needed a plan for everything from baking a cake to total global domination. He’d drummed project management into both of his grandchildren. Again and again, Tinker had used her training to change the world: from creating hoverbike racing to defeating the entire oni army single-handedly. Oilcan had always kept his projects smaller and more personal. This was going to be the largest project he had ever taken on. Still, the key to any project was to break it into small, manageable steps.
The first thing he’d need was a path cleared to one of the chalkboards, chalk, and every dumpster he could get his hands on.
The third floor of the school, Oilcan decided, would be the “family” level, while the guest rooms could be on the second. He picked out the room at the head of the stairs for himself. From it, he could keep watch over all the comings and goings. He’d cleared a path to the chalkboard and started sketching out a plan on how to make the kids’ lives right.
There was no way he could get the building cleaned all at once, so he needed to prioritize the rooms. He would also have to fix the front door and make sure the back door locked tightly and any other entrances were secure. Utilities were on, but he wasn’t sure if all the light fixtures worked — he should check those before it got dark.
The building was silent except for the scratch of his chalk, so he jumped when someone said directly behind him, “I had no idea that project management was genetic.”
Last time Oilcan had seen Riki Shoji, the tengu was still pretending to be a human physics grad student who lucked into a job at Tinker’s salvage yard. All that remained of the disguise was the tone and cadence of Riki’s voice — a wry sense of humor that scraped along the baritone registry. If it weren’t for the voice, Oilcan wouldn’t have recognized the tengu warrior as Riki. He stood in the door like a dark angel, wingtips brushing the doorframe. From the machine gun on his hip to the steel fighting spurs on his bird-like feet, there was nothing of the witty scholar Oilcan had called friend.
The only other person who ever triggered so many conflicting emotions in Oilcan — most of them negative — was safely dead by Pony’s hand. There was a point, just a few days ago, when Oilcan was sure he would kill Riki given a chance. That was before he found out that the oni had been holding Riki’s six-year-old cousin, Joey, as hostage.
It was an uncomfortable feeling knowing that Oilcan had the luxury of never having to decide how far he would go to protect Tinker. He’d never had to kill someone. He’d never had to betray someone that trusted him. If faced with the same choice, could he have saved Tinker by allowing the oni to torture someone who trusted him? Especially now that he intimately knew the horrors that the oni could inflict? Oilcan couldn’t even imagine choosing either and staying sane.
Rage had been wonderfully simple compared to what Oilcan felt now.
“What are you doing here?” Oilcan growled.
The tengu shifted uneasy. “I heard that you ended up with the kids we rescued yesterday.”
Oilcan took a deep breath and let it out. He knew that the tengu had been instrumental in the rescue, but he hadn’t known that Riki had been involved. Tinker had told him that as part of the Chosen bloodline, Riki had been considered the leader of the tengu prior to Jin’s return. It was why the oni kidnapped Joey Shoji; it gave them a hold on all the tengu through Riki. It would make sense for Riki to lead an assault instead of Jin. “And?”
“I’ve stayed at your place. It was okay for two, but way too small for six. I figured you needed help moving.” Riki nudged the mounds of trash that threatened to block the door. “Looks like you could use a lot of help.”
Oilcan snorted and turned back to the chalkboard. What had he been writing? “Wish” was all he had written down. Wish he could go back to comfortably hating Riki? Not that he really was comfortable with all the rage he’d felt. It had felt like putting on his father’s skin.
Wish list. He needed to know what the kids had lost to the oni. If Merry was any example, the kids had pared their luggage down to what they must have to start a new life. If the kids were going to put the nightmare of their captivity behind them, they had to have those essentials back. Oilcan wrote “Barley: knives; Rustle: instrument.” Assuming, of course, that Rustle could ever use his shattered left arm again.
There was a noise behind him, and he realized that Riki had picked up a handful of the garbage and was carrying it downstairs.
Tinker had clearly forgiven Riki. She talked about how Riki had subtly protected her while she was held captive, and how adorable his cousin Joey was. Riki knew the oni; he knew what they could do to a child and what he was setting Tinker up to endure. How could Oilcan blame Riki for protecting Joey? How could he forgive Riki for hurting Tinker?
Oilcan still wasn’t sure how to deal with Riki, when an odd tip-tapping in the foyer heralded the return of the children from the faire grounds.
“Sama?” Merry’s voice echoed through the building.
“Up here.” Oilcan went out to the hall and leaned over the banister.
The children hadn’t returned empty-handed; they had a pair of baby indi on twine leashes.
“Where did you get those?” he asked. Oh, please gods, hopefully Baby Duck hadn’t stolen those, too.
“They gave the indi to us,” Cattail Reeds said.
Blue Sky shrugged his shoulders when Oilcan looked to him for confirmation. “Tinker apparently put the fear of God into everyone. The enclave people were really nice.”
Merry wrinkled her nose at the smell as she eyed the trash-covered foyer. “What is this place?”
“This is going to be our enclave — once we get it cleaned out.”
The kids eyed the mess around them.
“Quiee.” Baby Duck said what they all clearly were thinking.
“Yes, I know it looks horrible,” he said. “It just needs some work.”
There was the rumble of a big truck outside and then the hiss of brakes. The first of the dumpsters had arrived.
Riki was in the kitchen, cleaning. He had slipped on the scholar disguise again; there was no sign of his wings or gun or fighting spurs. His sandals were so nondescript that they camouflaged Riki’s bird-like feet with normalcy.
Considering the emotional state of the kids, Oilcan was glad that if Riki was determined to be underfoot, at least he was doing it in the least threatening of modes.
“What are you doing here?” Oilcan whispered, since the kids had followed him into the kitchen.
“First room on your list to clean is the kitchen,” Riki said evenly.
Oilcan laughed bitterly and kept picking his way to the back door. “There’s been a change in priorities. I’m starting with the backyard.”
“Why?”
Oilcan pointed at one of the indi as it bleated as if in answer. He already assumed it would be days before the building would be clean enough to actually move into. While he could slip the chicks into his condo, they’d have to leave the indi here.