“Dynamite,” Guy murmured but didn’t offer any more information.
Tinker had said that Windwolf and the other domana were far to the east, miles from the city, with a majority of the elf forces. It left the city defended only by a small force of royal marines, the EIA, the local police, and the tengu. It was a lot of land to cover for a small force. The bridges created choke points and Oilcan was in the South Side, on the wrong side of the Monongahela River.
Maybe they should leave after they got the ice cream. They could come back tomorrow. He would say leave now, but all his kids were excited about their first taste of the human treat. Ten minutes shouldn’t make any difference.
He walked into the ice cream shop where his kids were gazing at the selections in wonder and confusion. The shop was an assault on the senses. The walls and ceiling were painted in pink stripes. Gaudy beaded chandeliers provided the light. A brightly colored toy train ran along a track near the ceiling. The sound system was playing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” It had a long, glass-enclosed, refrigerated counter displaying dozens of different flavors of ice cream in five-gallon tubs and then, at the far end, little bins of possible toppings like peanuts, gummy bears, M&M candies, and brightly colored sprinkles. The employees were two teenage girls in cute blue aprons. They had swooned at the sight of ruggedly handsome Guy Kryskill and seemed oblivious to the fact that there were two sekasha, four visibly battered elf children, and seven assorted “others” standing in front of them.
“Cotton Candy?” Barley read the Elvish runes that had been hand-scrawled under the English labels. Whoever had done the signs had simply used direct translation of the words without realizing that most of the names were utter nonsense to elves. “White House?”
Blue Sky did his best to describe the flavors. “White House is vanilla with cherries in it. I’m not sure how to describe Cotton Candy except as very sweet.” Blue Sky eyed the tubs sitting next to Cotton Candy: Moose Tracks and Muddy Sneakers. He pointed to a tub at the far end of the counter, probably to avoid having to explain the oddly named flavors. “I usually get the chocolate peanut butter.”
“Peanut butter?” Thorne and the kids said with excitement. Oilcan’s lone jar of peanut butter had been scraped and then licked clean within minutes of the elves discovering the spread. He hadn’t been able to find a second jar; the stores had been picked clean of pantry staples since the gate failed.
The type of cones had to be explained: waffle, sugar, cake, pretzel, or chocolate-dipped. All fifty different possible toppings were named and some of them needed to be described and/or sampled. The process of getting ice cream ground to a halt as everyone considered the hundreds of combinations.
Oilcan normally got his mother’s favorite of Rocky Road. He wasn’t sure what being transformed into an elf had done to his sense of taste. Tinker had been dismayed by the change. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out that he no longer liked Rocky Road with all his kids to witness his disappointment. “I’ll take a waffle cone with two scoops of chocolate peanut butter, please. No toppings.” He handed across enough money to cover a dozen of their most expensive cones. “I’m paying for everyone.”
The taste was different. Better. Amazing even, but in a weird way, since with every bite he expected normal chocolate peanut butter.
Moon Dog was digging out dime-sized gold coins from a leather pouch and looking puzzled.
Most Pittsburghers wouldn’t take gold coinage; the exchange rate fluctuated wildly every Shutdown since it was based on the amount of rare metals within the coins. (To be fair, most currency fluctuated but most Pittsburghers weren’t aware that humans had anything but American dollars.) Nor did the elves completely trust the human cash. What ended up happening was that the enclaves acted as banks for the Wind Clan elves living within the city. They would exchange gold coins for dollars that they earned from their human customers.
Someone should have explained it to Moon Dog. Had he not stayed in an enclave since he arrived in Pittsburgh? Or had the Wind Clan elves turned a blind eye to the Stone Clan sekasha? It was doubtful since Tinker threatened to exile anyone who refused to help incoming elves because they weren’t Wind Clan.
It could be possible, though, that the Wind Clan elves were more scared of the young warrior than they were of being exiled.
Oilcan’s ice cream cone had started to melt down over his hand.
“I am paying for everyone’s ice cream,” Oilcan said between licks to control the melting. “Please consider it as a gift. It is the least I can do for the help that everyone is giving me and my household.”
“You are so kind.” Moon Dog put away his coins. “Thank you.”
Despite being young and obviously smitten with Guy, the teenage girls were fast and efficient. Whenever anyone finally decided what they wanted, the girls put together the ice cream combination of flavor, size, container, and toppings with practiced speed. In a matter of minutes, they had served all eleven people with Oilcan plus created three “doggy bowls” for the elfhounds guarding the trucks. According to Andy, chocolate was off-limits for the dogs, so they got plain vanilla with a bottle of water as a chaser.
“Shit!” the taller girl suddenly hissed as she jerked back from the glass counter. The girl fumbled with the various serving utensils, whispering fiercely, “A rat! Don’t let the customers see.”
All the sekasha had gone to full alert at her abrupt motion.
“I don’t think that’s a rat,” the other girl whispered back. “It’s pink and long and snaky.”
A weirdly familiar squeal of delight came from the counter. The baby dragon accompanying the talking mice had been pink and snaky.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Oilcan waved at Thorne and Moon Dog and Blue Sky to stand down. “I think it might be Joy. She’s a dragon.”
“A dragon?” everyone in the store echoed.
“Yummy!” a baby-girl voice cried in English from the tub of Cotton Candy flavor. The tiny pink dragon popped up to put her cream-covered paws against the glass. “Knock, knock! Who’s there?”
Everyone started to talk at once. Because Oilcan had named the dragon aloud, the counter girls were under the impression that it was his dragon and were not pleased. Guy and Andy wanted to know how Oilcan kept finding dragons; they seemed to think that the dragons were like scaly talking elfhounds. Thorne wanted to know if this was a good dragon like Impatience or a bad dragon like Malice. His kids were freaking out, thinking that it meant there were some oni somewhere close by. Moon Dog seemed to be the only one unimpressed.
“Waya!” Moon Dog had gotten a three-scoop cone with chocolate peanut butter, cotton candy, and cookie dough. “And this ice cream is waya too.”
“She’s ruined that entire tub!” The tall girl pointed at Joy while keeping as far back as she could get. “It was nearly full! I just opened it this morning.”
“I’ll pay for it.” Oilcan handed over the cash and then ducked behind the counter to lift the cotton candy flavor’s tub out of the freezer.
The baby dragon continued to happily shove fistfuls of blue-and-pink ice cream into her mouth. “Nom, nom, nom.”
“You are not taking that dangerous beast back to our enclave,” Thorne said firmly and then seemed to realize how it sounded. “Are you?”
Was he? Oilcan didn’t know what he was going to do with the baby dragon. This wasn’t like finding Impatience at his barn, far away from any other person who could be harmed by Oilcan’s curiosity about the strange beast. There were more than a dozen people crowded into the small shop, counting the frightened counter girls. According to the tengu, though, the baby dragon had come to Elfhome with the twins and was claiming them as her Chosen. Surely Joy wasn’t that dangerous.