The realization that Providence hadn’t been able to wholly protect the tengu filled Louise with disquiet. It meant that the dragons didn’t know a spell that could shield Pittsburgh from whatever the oni planned.
14: ONCE MORE WITH FEELING
Oilcan wasn’t sure how he ended up taking all the kids at the enclave shopping.
It started out small. He wanted to buy two of everything for a little girl’s bedroom: bed, nightstand, dresser, bookcase, desk, and chair. Tinker would be persuaded by a furnished room faster than by an empty space and vague promises. Oilcan hoped that her sisters would be similarly inclined. There were also things his enclave still needed, especially if it was to seem like a home to children raised on Earth. His pickup wouldn’t be able to handle all the furniture he hoped to buy. He could swing past the salvage yard and pick up the flat bed, but that would leave his pickup on the other side of the city. A second driver would be the easiest way to get everything back to the enclave.
It had seemed simple to grab Blue Sky Montana and take him along. The little half-elf might look ten years old, but he was eighteen and thus legally old enough to drive. What’s more, his sekasha bloodline meant that if they got separated, none of the royal marines who were patrolling the city in droves would give him grief.
Blue Sky had been painting bedrooms on the second floor with a handful of kids. Some of them belonged to Oilcan. Some of them were just visiting.
One thing led to another and before Oilcan knew it, an entire herd of kids and the three dogs were spilling out onto the sidewalk on the South Side from three separate vehicles. All five of his kids came along, even Barley, who was rarely out of the kitchen. His kids had also brought along their elfhound, Repeat, who they thought had been killed in the oni attack. Since Repeat had mysteriously reappeared, the kids had refused to go anywhere without the puppy. Oilcan had also somehow picked up the half-oni Spot, a tengu girl named Rebecca Brotman, a random sekasha, Guy Kryskill, Andy Roach, and two of the Roach family elfhounds, Pete and Bruno.
The mini-circus had gotten started when everyone that wanted to come wouldn’t fit in Oilcan’s truck. Guy had been at Sacred Heart, helping Team Tinker install the new custom-built front gate. Guy volunteered his fiery red Ford pickup with a long bed, but apparently that required his cousin Andy and the dogs to come with him. (The truck was older than the boy, who turned sixteen in the spring. Oilcan and Tinker had spent part of the winter helping Roach refurbish the Ford what now seemed a lifetime ago.)
The other three additions — an elf, a tengu, and a half-oni — were a mystery. Oilcan hadn’t been aware that they’d picked up random spare people somewhere along the way until they unloaded in the South Side.
“Stay.” Andy pointed at the dogs and then sidewalk beside Guy’s Ford. “Guard.”
The bear-sized adult dogs sat down in the shade casted by the pickup. Repeat glanced between Andy and Baby Duck, but the little female was entranced by the flashing neon sign over the door. The puppy decided to obey its former master and join the other dogs. It made Oilcan happy since both pickups had rifles in their gunracks and the sekasha were stashing their bows, arrows, and other backup weapons into the weapons crate strapped to the back of the flatbed.
“Quiee,” Baby Duck quacked at the gaudy display. “What does it say?”
Blue Sky blushed, self-conscious that his Elvish was not as good as one expected for a half-elf. He liked being the voice of authority for the other children, so he fumbled through the translation. He’d spent enough time in Oilcan’s wake to know the reference. “Once More With Feeling. It’s something a…” He paused to consider how to translate “conductor” and settled for “…leader says to his musicians so that they’ll play the same song a second time but less mechanically. It’s because they sell used furniture and music…stuff. Instruments — and the paper with songs written on them…” Blue Sky stumbled to a halt and then switched topics by pointing to the store across the street. “See! That’s the ice cream shop I was talking about. It serves Reinhold’s ice cream and things like whipped cream and hot fudge to put on top.”
“Furniture first,” Oilcan said loudly as all the kids except Merry and Rustle surged toward the curb. He didn’t want the group splitting up. “We’ll get the ice cream afterward.”
The kids swarmed into Once More With Feeling.
The shop was currently the biggest furniture store in Pittsburgh. The title of “biggest” used to be held by its sister store, Once Upon A Mattress. Located in Market Square, with big storefront windows, Once Upon A Mattress had handled only new merchandise, which it leased at insane prices to off-world personneclass="underline" UN peacekeeping forces, embassy employees, and private corporation employees. Locals would window-shop the displays of matched furniture sets but never actually buy anything. They knew that off-worlders rarely stayed on Elfhome. After a year or two, most workers would finish their duty and rotate back to Earth. Once Upon A Mattress would collect the leased furniture to sell at Once More With Feeling for pennies on the dollar.
Once Upon A Mattress, though, had gone down in a blaze of glory when someone shot several thousand bullets through it. Six forty-foot-long walking electric catfish, a police car, and the store’s entire inventory had been reduced to Swiss cheese by the gunfire.
Once More With Feeling was a thrift store in theory. It was, however, very expensive compared to the others of its kind due to the quality of its stock. Oilcan hadn’t been able to afford it, not with the amount of furniture that he needed for his enclave. He had avoided the store while he’d scoured the city for tables and chairs for his enclave’s dining room.
He’s picked clean all the nearby abandoned buildings and cheap thrift stores and still needed a lot more furniture for his enclave. It was one of the many reasons Oilcan had decided to become Beholden to the Wind Clan. With backing from Tinker, he could simply do a massive purchase of everything he needed.
The front door of Once More With Feeling opened to a football-field-sized showroom. His kids stood for a full minute staring openmouthed in awe.
Blue Sky broke the silence. “It’s just a furniture store, not the Grand Canyon.”
“Elves custom-make all their furniture to last for centuries.” Guy Kryskill’s brother apprenticed under one the elf furniture makers, so he could speak with authority. “They don’t have stores like this, not even in their big cities.”
“So…” Blue Sky mimed “mind blown” while looking meaningfully at the stunned elves around him.
“Yup.” Guy started toward the back corner of the showroom. “The cooking stuff is all back in the corner. Gas ranges. Grills. Pots and pans. It’s all hit or miss but sometimes you get lucky.”
Guy triggered a sudden scattering of kids, each pursuing their own interest. Barley followed Guy and Andy to the cookware department, deep in a discussion about smoking meat. Merry and Rustle headed to the opposite corner for a wall display of guitars. Cattail Reeds and the tengu girl, Rebecca, beelined upstairs where bridal wear and vintage dresses were sold, talking about Earth fashion trends. Baby Duck started to critique all the overstuffed couches lining the store’s center aisle in a twisted elf version of Goldilocks.
“Too black. Too ugly. Too black.” Baby Duck ticked quickly down the row. “Quiee! This one is beautiful! Let’s get this one!”
Her choice was a small pink French country love seat with wood accents. It was very cute but very small.