He was the oldest of the half-oni. A few of the others, like Trixie, looked human enough to flee their home and find someplace safe in the city. Those who could, had. (Like Trixie, they’d trickled back after Lord Tomtom had been killed.) Tommy had been able to work outside the warren because he could cloud the minds of anyone looking too closely at him. With his bandana, he could pass as human if he was careful. Kiki — and many of the other kids whose fathers had been lesser bloods — hadn’t been able to leave the warren. Anyone who saw them would know that they weren’t human. The elves would have killed them on sight.
It left the children at the mercy of Lord Tomtom’s warriors. Not all survived the experience. Over the years, Tommy had quietly disposed of dozens of small bodies.
The restaurant had been a means to an end. Neither Lord Tomtom nor Lord Kajo had contributed money to keep the half-oni fed and clothed. His mother and her three younger sisters worked the front of the house as waiters. The kids could do prep work, cook, clean — anything that contributed but kept them out of sight of customers. The restaurant barely made enough to keep the family fed. Every nine or ten months, another mouth would be added. That was just his family. All across the city were other pockets of abused women and half-oni children slowly starving to death.
The oni didn’t trust human technology; they refused to use phones. Once Tommy got old enough to travel the city, his father used him as a messenger to network together all the hidden households. His mother would give Tommy food and money for those less fortunate. After Lord Tomtom killed her, Tommy did whatever he had to do to keep up her charity. Most of it was illegal. Shoplifting. Pickpocketing. His ability made it simple. If he had been caught, though, he could have brought the entire house of cards down.
He’d had several children adopted into his warren because they had no place else to go. Their mothers had been killed. They were too small to live alone. They couldn’t hide what they were. They didn’t know enough of the outside world to survive in it.
Tommy had started the racetrack as a way for the older kids who could pass as human to legally make money without fear. It did nothing for the children like Kiki. Nor was the racetrack a good, stable source of income. He needed teams to race. He needed an audience that had free time and the willingness to drive out into the countryside. He needed the weather to be fair. Winter ended the racing season; he’d learned the hard way that Pittsburghers wouldn’t come out to the open stadium past November.
His family needed some other way to make a living.
Damn Bingo for finding such a seductive trap. The big building offered everyone privacy that they never had before. Nice beds. Hot showers. No waiting to use the toilet. The kids who could pass as human could do the jobs like the front desk while the others like Kiki could stay hidden doing housekeeping.
Even if they were safe from attack, the unknowns were massive. How much did it cost to operate? How soon would they have to start forking over money or have the power shut off? If they lost power, they would have to drain all the water pipes to keep them from freezing and breaking. Without water, the toilets would fill with shit. Unlike their old warehouse warren, there was no way to jury-rig a wood stove. Living in the hotel required keeping the power on at a time when he wasn’t sure they could even buy food enough to keep from starving.
How many rooms would they need to fill to make a profit? How long would the off-worlders continue to pay for a room when they could simply go squat in one of Pittsburgh’s many abandoned houses? One answer was simple math but the other was impossible to know.
That was all assuming that the war with the oni went well and the oni mystery box didn’t unleash a killing blow to the elves. Judging by how nervous the tengu seemed at Poppymeadows, the box was a game changer. All his instincts were to run and hide while they had a chance.
It still felt unreal to open the door to a luxury suite and know by the scent that it was his. He had slept there. He had used the toilet. This was where all his things were.
It didn’t feel like home. It felt like a trap. One his people wanted to stay in. One that he might not be able to get them out of.
He found a blue bandana and used it to hide his cat ears. The effect was far from perfect; it only worked because he could create the illusion in the mind of anyone he was talking to. He meant that he had to avoid crowds.
Still, it didn’t seem like it was him looking back in the mirror. Maybe because he had never before seen himself in such a massive mirror. It was four feet wide and three feet high. Behind him was a gleaming marble-lined shower. The male he was used to seeing wasn’t Beholden to any elf, wouldn’t walk around in front of elves without a bandana on, and wouldn’t care if a bunch of shit-for-brains human females had disappeared from Liberty Avenue. The male he usually saw in the mirror couldn’t care about anyone but his own family.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tommy whispered to his reflection.
Neither one of them knew for sure.
His phone rang, dragging him away from the mirror.
He didn’t recognize the number on the screen.
He answered it with a cautious “What?”
“Hey, Tommy, it’s Blue. Blue Sky Montana. Yeah, I thought I should call and tell you that we’re going out for ice cream, so Spot isn’t going to be at Sacred Heart for a while. He’s coming with us.”
“What? You’re taking him out? Who is going?”
Blue Sky was spunky but he was still just a little kid. If they ran into someone who wanted to hurt Spot, he probably wouldn’t be able to protect him.
“A bunch of us,” Blue Sky said. “Oilcan. Thorne. All of Oilcan’s kids. Guy, Andy, and Rebecca are coming too.”
It sounded like they were taking half the neighborhood with them. Spot would be safe in that crowd since half of them tended to be heavily armed.
“Okay,” Tommy said. “I’ll swing by later and pick him up.”
One less worry for the time being.
Mokoto hadn’t been in bed yet. He answered his door wearing a silk kimono tied loosely at his hips, threating to slide off his narrow shoulders. A cloth headband held back his hair from his face and all his sultry makeup was scrubbed off. It had been months since Tommy last saw Mokoto without his whore mask. He looked years younger and a little lost.
“What’s wrong?” Mokoto asked in a tone that indicated he was bracing for the worst.
“Nothing.” Tommy explained about Tinker taking interest in finding everyone who had fallen through the cracks throughout the entire city.
As he talked, Mokoto relaxed into a sexy lean against the doorframe. The kimono slid off one shoulder. He looked up Tommy with a wistful face. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, what are we going to do with you?” Mokoto took hold of Tommy’s T-shirt. “Don’t let them use you to take on the world. I’ll tell you who I think is missing, but you got to promise me to be careful. I’m not going to trade you for anyone else in this universe. You’re more important to us than any of them. You’re a good man. A knight in shining armor! But you’re our knight, not theirs. We’re the ones that love you, not them. We’ll be the ones crying ourselves to sleep years after you get yourself killed, not them.”
“I’m not going to get myself killed.”
“Promise?” Mokoto let go of Tommy’s shirt to offer up his little finger with its gem-crusted black nail polish. “Pinkie swear?”
Tommy, Bingo, and Mokoto were the oldest of the half-oni. Bingo would always do whatever Tommy told him to do. Mokoto needed promises made and religiously kept. He was a little thing, but fearless and cunning in his anger. If you made him mad, he wouldn’t hit you. He’d wait until you were asleep, tie you up, and then piss in your face. Tommy learned the hard way not to include “stick a needle in my eye” in any promise to Mokoto.