“It’s just the children.” Oilcan shifted between the warriors and the hallway.
Red Knife gave a dry laugh. “Your family’s courage is disproportionate to your size.”
“Courage comes from the spirit, not the body,” Oilcan said.
Red Knife nodded at the truth. The Wyvern First came to tower over Oilcan again. “How old are you?”
Oilcan learned a long time ago not to tell elves his age. A human never lived long enough to seem to be anything more than a child. “I’m an adult.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” There was no mistaking the edge in the Wyvern’s voice despite the politeness of the High Elvish.
Thorne Scratch gave her head a nearly imperceptible shake, telling him not to annoy the Wyvern.
Oilcan gritted his teeth and confessed. “I’m twenty-two years old.” It made him basically about five years old in elf terms.
Red Knife laughed, murmuring, “Just a baby.” He glanced down the hall again at the children cowering there. “Babies taking care of babies.”
“I am an adult now,” Oilcan stated. “My family is no longer immortal. I will not live beyond my doubles.”
“And yet you can tap the Spell Stones.” Red Knife shook his head and then turned to Thorne. “Stay with him until someone sane from your clan can decide what is to be done.”
“What’s happened?” he asked after the other sekasha had left.
“They’re dead. The oni killed them all,” Thorne said bleakly. “They took Jewel Tear. Forest Moss is not currently lucid.”
The gunfire had been part of a massacre. Elves that Thorne had known for hundreds of years had been cut down in the battle.
“I’m so sorry,” Oilcan said. “But I don’t understand how this relates to me.”
“If you can tap the Stone Clan Spell Stones, then you are Stone Clan domana.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are the only functioning Stone Clan domana in Pittsburgh at this moment,” Thorne Scratch continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “You are head of the clan.”
“No!” Oilcan caught her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Look at me! See me! I’m human!”
She studied him hard with her warrior mask on, but then she let the mask drop. She stepped forward and pressed her forehead to his. “I see you.”
26: PROVIDENCE
“Domi.” Pony woke Tinker in full dark. “The tengu have come to speak with you.”
She flailed in bed, momentarily confounded by darkness and the fact that her right arm was bound tight to her side. “Which ones?”
“It is Jin Wong.” Pony helped her sit up. “And I believe he has brought his entire household.”
Surely Pony wasn’t right; Jin’s entire household was all twenty thousand tengu.
“In the middle of the night?”
“You wanted to talk to them.”
She did? It took her a minute to remember that when they were splinting her arm, she had told Riki that that she wanted to ask him about greater bloods. Apparently Riki decided that Jin would have more information.
“Yes, I did.” Only, she wanted to talk to them in small, manageable numbers. All did not sound small to her. Now that she was awake, she could hear the rustle of wings, and distant drumming. “Get me some light.”
As Pony activated a spell light, Tinker stumbled into her closet to grab something to wear. She had on the blue cheetah-print cami and boy shorts, but she’d rather meet the entire tengu flock in something other than her Victoria Secrets. She grabbed a dress of deep green silk. She really needed to do something about her wardrobe.
Lemonseed was waiting as Tinker came out of the closet. “Domi, they are asking if we can cancel the defensive spells.”
Pony had on his warrior’s mask and gave Tinker a shake of his head, meaning he didn’t think it was safe to let down their guard. Lemonseed, though, was waiting for Tinker’s word.
When she had called Jin, he had come to her alone and unarmed, trusting that he’d be safe with her. He was asking her to trust him this time.
“Cancel them,” Tinker said. “And bring Jin into the courtyard. That way the overflow of tengu can perch on the roof.”
Lemonseed’s eyes widened at the thought of tengu on the roof, but she bowed and hurried away.
Tinker went out into the courtyard to find that all the spell lights had been removed, pitching the acre of peach trees into darkness. Black wings churned unseen in the sky overhead, masked by branches. Shrill flutes and thin tin gongs had joined the drumming, growing louder as the musicians came through the main hall.
Her Hand pressed in tightly around her, hands gripped tight to their ejae, ready to draw.
Small figures came spilling out the hall, carrying paper lanterns. Tinker lost count after the first dozen that swarmed through the courtyard, slowly lighting up the area as more and more moved among the trees. One came hurrying up to her. It was little Joey Shoji, dressed in a white tunic trimmed in red and carrying a lantern nearly as big as he was.
“Joey, what’s going on?” Tinker asked.
He pressed a finger to his lips. “Shhh, Providence is coming.”
Jin had told her once that Providence was the guardian spirit of the tengu. As the Chosen, he was considered Providence’s child. From what she could gather, though, the guardian spirit was actually a dragon.
Did that mean there was yet another dragon in Pittsburgh?
Behind the lantern bearers came musicians. The flutes were shrill. The gongs looked like and sounded like battered cooking pots. The drums ranged in tones from high and thin to sharp and woody. They made a sharp-edged music with no discernible melody. Just as she thought musicians were playing completely solo to each other, they all sped up slightly at the same moment.
Finally Jin appeared, dressed in robes of white. He was dancing, slowly, mechanically, almost like a series of poses. Before each new pose, he would take a quick step forward, so that he was stuttering his way through the dark trees, like a series of still photographs.
Riki followed behind Jin, dressed in black, winged, armed with swords, and his face painted for war. A dozen armed tengu followed, all with swords but no pistols and rifles. Riki’s younger cousin, Kieko, was among the armed honor guard.
The possession included a small shrine being carried by a dozen males and a drum nearly eight feet across carried by another dozen. The big drum was settled into a stand; six drummers circled it and stood waiting. There was no sign of Providence. It seemed like an elaborate party to have without the guest of honor in attendance. Then again, if Providence was in Pittsburgh, Riki probably wouldn’t have kidnapped and strip-searched Tinker two weeks earlier, looking for signs that she was Impatience’s Chosen. He seemed desperate for a new guardian for the tengu. Or was it that without Jin, Providence wouldn’t protect the tengu?
The thrilling near-discordant flute music suddenly stopped, and for a moment the only noise was the wind through the leaves.
All six drummers struck once, a single deep heartbeat of sound.
A second simultaneous downbeat. Then a third.
Then in a sudden, wild of assault of drumming, all the drummers, perfectly in time with each other, beat out one massive rhythm.
Jin moved to the shrine, bowed low to it, and opened the front.
Tinker gasped as she saw what lay inside the little shrine: a dragon hide.
Jin lifted out the hide and turned, holding the head above him. The hide settled over his shoulders, cloaking him from view. The flutes broke out in their shrill discord and the gongs clattered fast and furious.