Tinker supplied the name of the scientist. “August Kekulé and his discovery of the molecular structure of benzene.”
“It’s one of the first things you learn when you’re born to the intanyai seyosa caste.” Stormsong said. “You focus your mind on what you want to see.”
Esme nodded. “I wanted someone that could teach me how to use my powers. That night I dreamed that there was a red thread wrapped around my fingers, leading out of Lain’s guest bedroom and down her stairs and out her door. I followed the thread into the dark streets and found on the other side of the river a beautiful elf female sitting in a grove of flowering lemon trees with a golden dragon the size of a mountain behind her. She had a red ribbon tied around her eyes and it trailed down and became the thread around my fingers.”
Stormsong breathed in sharply. “Vision?”
“Who?” Tinker asked. “What?”
“Clarity was not the first dragon that the Skin Clan captured, but she was the last,” Stormsong explained. “It is said that she allowed herself to be captured, knowing that her genetic material would create the caste that would lead the uprising. Like the sekasha before them, the intanyai seyosa were created in mass numbers, ruthlessly culled and refined while they were still helpless infants. There was an exception — one attempt to distill a perfect copy of Clarity in elf form. The resulting female child took the name Vision as she was the product of Clarity’s prophecy. She was the most powerful intanyai seyosa ever born. Pure Radiance was her only child. None of the others could ever equal my mother because the blood of Clarity runs pure in her. I have just a pale, hollow reflection of her power. It is to be expected, though, as my father is of a dragon-born caste. When two dragon bloodlines are present in one child, they are often at odds with each other. It is very rare for them reinforce each other.”
“When I woke up, I went looking for the female in my dreams,” Esme said. “I found her in McKees Rocks. She was expecting me but there was no time for her to teach me more than a few things. If I was going to stop everything I could see in my dreams, countermeasures had to be set in motion immediately.”
It was the first time Tinker had ever seen Stormsong completely flummoxed.
“Wh-wh-what?” Stormsong said. “You found her? Here?”
Esme pointed across the river. “Yes, she’s been here since — well — I’m not sure. I think before the first Startup. Before that I think she was in Boston.”
“She’s in Pittsburgh?” Stormsong wasn’t processing the news well.
“Wait? Who exactly are we talking about?” Tinker was confused. “If Pure Radiance was Vision’s daughter, then we’re talking about Stormsong’s grandmother? Your grandmother is in Pittsburgh?”
Esme had said previously that Tooloo had taught her how to control her dreams. They had been in the middle of illegally obtaining elf DNA and bullying a local funeral home into cremating the dead Stone Clan kids, so Tinker had forgotten to follow up. Shortly after that, the oni blew up Tinker’s limo, rebreaking her newly healed arm.
It had been a bad, bad night.
Stormsong looked uncertain as she shook her head. “I’ve never met my grandmother. Vision vanished before the Rebellion ended. The Skin Clan had bound her hand and foot. She was guarded by Vigilance. Like Malice, Vigilance could be considered a dragon but in truth was a spell-worked beast, pieced together from shattered pieces of other creatures. He wasn’t as clever or powerful as the Ryu dragon that the Skin Clan had shattered down to make him, but he was massive in size with golden scales. Despite the shackles and the magical guardian, Vision managed to slip away. The Skin Clan sent Vigilance after her to bring her back. Neither one was ever seen again. It was assumed that Vigilance had killed her and gone wild. She couldn’t possibly be in Pittsburgh.”
“Tooloo has a bed made of dragon bones,” Tinker said.
Stormsong shook her head. “I can’t believe it is her. I know you would not lie about it but she went missing when our people needed her the most. We would have not won the war against the Skin Clan without Pure Radiance and the others to tip the scale.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Esme said. “I went over to Tooloo’s store earlier for milk and eggs. She gave me your mail.”
“My mail?” Tinker thought the tengu had been collecting that for her.
Esme went to the kitchen counter and hunted through dirty baking pans. “Yeah, it looks like a greeting card. It’s dated back in April. It’s postmarked New York City.”
“New York City?” Tinker took envelope that Esme handed her. “How long did Tooloo have it? Nothing has come from Earth since July!”
Esme shrugged. “She didn’t say.”
Tinker ripped open the envelope. Inside was a birthday card. It had a girl in a dress decorated with pink flowers. It read: To a special sister on your eighteenth birthday. “Oh shit, the twins sent me a birthday card!”
Tinker looked at the envelope again. It had been addressed to the Neville Island hotel but the Pittsburgh post office had forwarded it to her salvage yard. Ink stamps marked its passage from New York City in April to Elfhome days before her eighteenth birthday.
“Wait. Oh, that bitch! I remember Tooloo raiding my mail after the April Startup! She and her stupid chicken. She managed to slip this out from under my nose!”
Tinker headed for the door.
“Domi?” Stormsong followed. “Where are we going?”
“I’m going to get some answers out of Tooloo, one way or another.”
11: BE OUR GUEST
Tommy had forgotten his phone in his new fancy bedroom, so he had to swing past the William Penn Hotel to pick it up. It felt weird walking into the lobby, knowing that he’d slept in the building the night before and would probably do it again until Bingo found them a new place to live. The lobby was a huge room with marble floors, massive crystal chandeliers, and lush seating. Weirder yet, everything was lit up and gleaming as if dozens of half-oni just completed an intensive deep clean to the space.
Trixie had always been one of Tommy’s favorite cousins. She cleaned up decently enough. Like most of the half-oni, she was painfully skinny after years of near starvation. She was, though, also painfully “sharp,” in all ways that the word could be applied to a female.
She was standing behind the counter in the hotel lobby, fiddling with the machine that coded the room keys. Instead of the tank top, capris, and ballerina flats that she normally wore, she had on a dark blazer jacket over a white button-down shirt and black slacks.
“What the hell is going on?” Tommy asked. “Did you guys clean the lobby? Why are the lights all on? Why are you dressed like that?”
Trixie smiled tightly. “Welcome to the William Penn Hotel. How can I help you?”
“We are not running a hotel,” Tommy growled.
Trixie shrugged. “We already have three guests.”
“What?”
“It turns out that Tinker’s fight with Malice took out half of the Wyndham Grand. Since all the hotels in the area were booked solid since the July Startup, the poor souls who had been staying at the Wyndham have been sleeping at their offices. When the ones in the Alcoa building noticed people coming and going from here, they strolled over to see if they could get a room.”
“You gave them rooms?” Tommy could guess the answer but hoped that he was wrong. Surely Trixie was smarter than that.
“I explained we’re not able to accept credit cards at this point in time, that they would need to pay cash up front. They went down to the bank and came back with oodles of cash.”