"The other gate?" He nodded his head in the direction of the second gate, currently being wired without her guidance.
"If we don't get away, it's what will keep us alive." But not intact. She shoved the thought away, and pulled him over to the rack that used to hold the wiring spools. "These." She twisted and pulled the middle pole far enough out to show that it wasn't attached. "They're a weapon for you. It's the best I could do."
The poles lacked the magically sharp edge of the sekasha's ironwood swords, but they matched the blades in size and, probably, weight.
Pony's eyes widened at the long stout poles of ironwood. "They will do nicely. Very clever."
"We'll see how clever I really am."
With her stomach squirming like a nest of snakes, she walked to the huge red-painted switch and threw it. It started the sound and light show on the gate, drawing the guard's eyes while she moved back and kicked the secret power switch on. If she was right, the gate would exist between both dimensions while operating, and thus be impossible to damage. Hopefully no one would discover how to turn off the power until too late.
Oh merciful gods in heaven, and the five spirits of the world, let this work.
The air around the gate shimmered and distorted, a massive confusion of particles as space was folded. Almost immediately she could feel the feedback pulses, but still so slight that she hoped no one would be able to notice them. Visibly, the area through the center of the ring looked no different, just oddly distorted, like water over glass, with the back of the workshop still discernible. No wonder natural gates were so hard to find. One might think the gate wasn't working, except the entire structure—including the ironwood framework but luckily not the ramp—had also phased out, becoming ghostlike.
The sudden blaze of lights brought Riki and the guards with him back.
"You turned it on?" Riki cried.
"It's the only way to see if it works." Tinker stood with her hand on the big red button, hoping to implant the wrong impression in the tengu's mind.
"Does it work?" Riki peered at the shimmering area inside the gate, keeping well back of it.
"I merely build these things, I don't test them." Tinker raised her hands, warding off any attempt to send her through. That would totally mess up her plans. "But it looks like it works to me. Why don't you get one of the guards to test it?"
That triggered the debate she hoped for. Trying to be all-so-unnoticeable, she walked back to the wire rack, took down the dinner-plate-sized spool of lead wire, and pulled free the pole. That she handed Pony, and removed another for herself. Us? Just moving wire. Nothing to see here.
The smallest of the construction workers was drafted to be first through the gate. Every eye was on him as he crept nervously up the ramp. The poor thing was trembling violently as he scanned the entire gate, arching around him. The others shouted at him in Oni, encouragements, commands, and curses.
As the oni stepped forward, vanishing into another world, Tinker and Pony slipped out the side door into the darkness.
The oni warriors were too well trained to let the gate totally distract them. The four assigned to Tinker tore themselves away, and the one who spoke crude English said, "Where go you?"
"The other door." Tinker motioned with the spool of wire. See, harmless. "Build next door?"
He glanced back to the brightly lit workshop, where everyone waited for the vanished worker.
Tinker didn't wait for him to decide, but headed slowly into the darkness.
Twenty days of playing construction demon goddess paid off; the guard followed without trying to stop her.
She had made only one trip to the second site, early last week, learning its location under the disguise of having to sign off on the exact orientation of the gate. Tomtom had taken her at her word and placed it at the complete opposite end of the mile-long warehouse, where the garage had once been. They passed through the gazebo room, and then through the kennel. The little dogs instantly launched into barking fits, but the warg merely eyed them as they passed.
Oh, gods, let this work.
The second workshop was empty of oni; the work crews had already left for the night. A handful of low-wattage bulbs threw pools of light down into the cave dark. Their footsteps echoed as they walked toward the gate; wrapped in shadows, it loomed over them—their insurance plan in ironwood.
"This part of the plan is nebulous," Tinker whispered to Pony in High Elvish, while pretending to examine work done. Without her slave driving, only the wood framing had been completed. Table-sized and smaller spools of wire—like the one she carried—sat waiting for the wiring to begin. "Do you think you can kill our escort?"
"Yes, domi zae," Pony said, paused, considered, and then asked, "Now?"
"Yes." She stepped behind him to give him room to work. "Now."
Pony took out the first two oni before the guards even realized he was attacking. One moment he was standing with the pole in his right hand, and the next he was driving the pole through the eye of the oni to the left with a motion that had his full body strength behind it. He shifted his grip, and swung the pole back to the right, like a baseball player hitting a line drive. The pole hit the oni's nose with a crack of shattering bone; the guard crumpled to the ground and lay still as death.
The third oni actually managed to dodge Pony's lightning swing, as the fourth pulled out his sword.
"Shit!" Tinker flung her spool of wire underhand—like a horseshoe—at the dodging oni. The spool hit him mid-chest, knocking him off balance, and Pony's pole struck him hard. The oni continued to move, though, while the last oni charged Pony with his sword ready. "Get the sword warrior, Pony, I'll deal with that one."
Yeah, right. But Pony was already engaging the last oni, meaning she'd better act. She gave the two fighters a wide berth as she dashed toward the crawling oni. She'd kicked a lot of people, and punched, and hit, but she never struck to kill. It'd been so easy to tell Pony to do it. The oni looked up, read her intent, and lunged at her—and she stopped being afraid to hurt him. She jerked backward, out of his reach, and swung at him as hard as she could. He threw up his arm, caught her pole and, laughing, wrenched it out of her hands. Cursing, she stomped down on his foot. He backhanded her and it was like being hit by a truck. The blow knocked her across the floor and up against the tanks of the acetylene torch. The taste of blood filled her mouth. Growling something in Oni, the guard flung aside the wood pole and came after her.
She twisted both gas lines wide open, snagged the torch, aimed it at the oni, and hit the igniter button. A foot-long lance of white-hot flame shot out in a deep «woof» of rapidly expanding air. It struck the oni full in the face.
He screamed in agony, stumbling back—and then went suddenly quiet as Pony cut his throat.
"Domi, are you hurt?" Pony asked, dropping the oni's body.
She shook her head, panting, staring at the blood rushing out of the still body. This was soooo not her.
"We should go." Pony came to lift her up, making sure for himself that she wasn't hurt. "Can you shoot a gun?"
"I've done it once." To save Windwolf from the oni to be exact. "It's not that hard. Point and pull the trigger."
He held out one of the onis' guns. "This is an Uzi. This is the safety; it will not fire with the safety on. This is a single shot. This is a three-bullet burst. This is rapid fire." He left the safety on, the gun set on rapid fire. He demonstrated holding it while firing it. "Brace yourself, it jumps in your hand and you quickly find yourself shooting into the sky. The bullets go until they hit something, so never fire with someone you don't want to hit standing anywhere in front of you."