Oilcan laughed despite the slight alarm that went through him. What was she distracting people from while she drew whiskers on them? As Wind Clan domi, she should have been able to command this crowd to do just about anything. It probably wasn’t something they should discuss in shouts in front of a crowd.
“Fields of Summer” wasn’t holding the whole audience. The humans were getting the reference to the ultimate casual in parties: a big empty field, a campfire, and an acoustic guitar for music. The elves and the tengu were drifting away, unfamiliar with the Pittsburgh tradition. Near the door there was a shove that turned into an angry staring match between the fringe of the tengu flock and some incoming laedin-enclave guards.
Oilcan scanned the audience, found Riki at the edge nearest Tinker, watching her with a slight frown. He caught Riki’s attention by playing the jarring notes of the song he had only ever shared with the tengu. Mother’s blood on my toes. .
Riki’s head whipped around, and he gave Oilcan a look of surprise and — oddly enough — hurt. Had it mattered that much that Oilcan had confided with him? That they shared that kind of pain? Oilcan jerked his head toward the brewing fight, and Riki followed his gaze and then nodded.
“What’s that?” Moser asked of the melody. “A new song?”
Oilcan shook his head. There was no way he’d play the sorrowful song publicly, especially with the audience on the edge like it was. He needed a song though, one to tie this whole crowd together. An idea of a song went through his head, and he started to fumble through a melody.
Moser quirked up an eyebrow but followed his lead. His frustration with the crowd fed into the tune. Couldn’t they just see that despite everything, they were all one people? At the very core, they had to have the same drive as his kids. Pittsburgh wasn’t a sane and simple place to live. You had to have a deep need to live here. The melody was defiant and angry, and the words, when they came, were furious.
“Blood on the pavement, blood on the blade, blood flows through common veins.” The words poured from somewhere deep inside of him, like they were being torn from his gut. “Three worlds bridged by a single span, steel that climbs from earth to sky. Freedom to create, freedom to fly — one world, one people, one kind. We are Pittsburgh.”
When he hit the chorus the second time, they all sang with him.
He and the rest of the band were all panting and dripping sweat and glowing with joy. It was like they had had a long session of really good sex. The humans in the crowd started to call for an encore, but Oilcan’s body felt rubbery with the effort to stay standing.
Tinker appeared out of the crowd, bouncing like a mad thing. She couldn’t possibly know how cute she looked, because she would have stopped otherwise. She bound up, claimed the microphone, and shouted, “We are Pittsburgh! We are one people!”
The crowd roared, loving her.
“When you see the whiskers on your face and the faces around you, remember! You’re not human, elf, or tengu — you’re a Pittsburgher! You’re one of us!”
They roared again.
“Thank you for all the help you’ve given my cousin. Now go home.”
The crowd laughed and went.
Despite his obvious exhaustion, Moser was still dancing. “This song is mine!” He had unplugged his electric guitar so there was no music to draw the crowd back but he could still strum through the chords of the new song. “I call dibs on it.”
Oilcan laughed. “If you can remember the words.”
Moser laughed and pulled out his cell phone. “I saw the gears grinding and knew what was coming. I recorded it.”
Oilcan high-fived Moser. “Let me hear.”
Tinker made a negative sound and gave Moser a little push. “You start that and you’ll be up all night. Go home, let the boy rest.”
“I’ll write up the score!” Moser promised as Briar grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the gym.
And suddenly it was all over. He had a massive house, five kids, and no idea if he even had a bed for the night. For all he knew, the upstairs was still filled with trash. He sat down on the floor and then went ahead and sprawled out on the smooth wood.
Tinker went off to make sure everyone actually left. She came back a few minutes later and nudged him with her toe. “I’m pretty sure this is a gym, not a bedroom.”
“They’re right about you being a genius.” Oilcan wished he could just sleep there on the gym floor. He had to find out, though, if the kids had someplace to sleep and if they had gotten some of the food that had circulated. Maybe he should pack up the kids and go back to his condo for the night. Then he remembered the indi, the chicks, and the puppy. He climbed back to his feet with a groan.
She poked him in the stomach. “You going to be okay?”
He laughed. He had no idea how to answer that truthfully. All day he had the sense of sinking in over his head until he couldn’t even see the surface.
“You know — no matter what — we’re always going to be family.” Tinker leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “You need something and it’s mine to give, it’s yours.”
He knew it to his core, but it was what he needed to hear. “I’ll be fine.”
Only after Tinker had left did Oilcan realize that he had no idea where his kids were. Even Merry had packed up her instrument and disappeared after the music ended; most likely scared off by the sekasha’s presence. The electricity was on in the school, but with the exception of the high fixtures of the gym, most of the light bulbs had been smashed. Trying not to panic, he got a flashlight from his pickup and headed up to the third floor that he had deemed “the family rooms.” His footsteps echoed through the dark, empty building.
He checked the classroom at the top of the stairs first. It was disappointingly cluttered. Apparently Team Tinker hadn’t finished cleaning the third floor. He started to turn away, when he recognized the smell of burnt popcorn. He turned back and panned the flashlight over the room. His microwave sat on its stand just inside the door. Beyond it was his overstuffed recliner and his nightstand.
It wasn’t litter in the classroom — it was the furniture from his condo! Someone had moved him lock, stock, and barrel. There were little towers of cans from his pantry, stacks of his ancient DVDs and CDs and Blue-ray disks, and heaps of clothes still on hangers from his closet. Everything he owned had been carried up and dropped at the first clear place on the floor. His belongings created island chains in the moonlight. His mattress canted against the far wall beside the windows.
“Sama?” Cattail Reeds came down the hall, carrying a spell light in one hand and a basket in the other. “Forgiveness, I didn’t have time to fix up your room.”
“Cattail! Where are the others?”
“Everyone else is asleep.” She yawned, waving the spell light back down the hallway toward the other classrooms.
“Did someone bring your beds?” He hated calling them beds, as they were just mattresses and sheets.
“Tinker ze domi had them brought from the small place.” Cattail had whiskers drawn on her face. He hadn’t seen any of the kids in the gym beyond Merry, but Tinker had obviously found them. “She brought food, too.”
It was intimidating how much Tinker could get done while acting silly. She had fed his kids and made sure they had someplace to sleep. “Oh, good. How clean are your rooms?”
“That is why we didn’t get your room straightened out.” She touched the whiskers on her face. “The Wind Clan was helping us clean our rooms. Ze domi made sure they were very kind to us. She said that we should think of ourselves as Pittsburghers first, not Wind Clan or Stone Clan.”