“We have to free Yumiko before Sparrow arrives,” Taggart said.
Jane dropped her voice to a whisper. “The EIA is not going to let us free their prisoner.”
Hal grinned. “We’re not going to ask them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jane said.
He grinned wider. “Accidents happen.”
Jane followed Hal down the hall wishing it wasn’t a good thing they were known for their mayhem. She wasn’t sure how Hal planned to cause an accident but normally he could do it by simply breathing wrong (his excuse for the fire in the WQED’s break room although there was a cake and candles involved). It just felt wrong to let him lead. Normally letting him have free rein led to bad things. They wanted a distraction, not to level the hospital.
Mercy was one of the places where Hal’s super hosting powers worked in inverse. (The WQED station was the other.) Familiarity breeds contempt or fear or something. Everyone that saw Hal, and recognized him, veered to get out of his path.
“Remember, Hal,” Jane whispered. “This is the only hospital on Elfhome. If you get banned or something, we are going to be screwed. And do not burn it down. Pittsburgh needs it.”
“I’m not going to burn it down.” He was, however, nearly bouncing like Tigger with anticipation, which usually meant bad things were about to happen.
“Get ready for anything,” Jane warned the other two, which for some reason only made Taggart grin too. “Nigel, we’re going to try and get footage for the show. This is a member of a third intelligent race. So far as I know, no one’s been able to get a living oni on camera. This is huge news, so of course we’re interested in anything we can learn about the tengu. Also we’ve told Maynard that we’ll kill the namazu and we believe the female might have important information on the number of monsters released into the rivers.”
Nigel nodded.
“We’ll keep the camera and hopefully the focus of the two guards on you while Hal does…what he does best.”
The guards stood at the door, one just inside the room, the other in the hall. They were in full battle gear and covered with dirt and sweat and blood. Jane had her pistol in a kidney holster but she didn’t want to get into a gunfight. The two obviously recognized Hal despite the broken nose and black eyes.
“Mr. Rogers, what are you doing here?” His name badge identified him as T. Talley. He was big man and imposing looking. Unknown to him, the effect was weakened by the fact that his shorter partner went a little bug-eyed (his glasses unfortunately compounded this greatly) and edged away from Hal.
Hal’s reputation was known. Good. Maybe. This could be a two-edged sword.
“This is Nigel Reid, world famous naturalist. He’s here in Elfhome to film—well, everything! The network has asked me to show him the ropes. Smooth the waters, so to speak. And keep him from being eaten. This is Pittsburgh, after all.”
The other, identified as P. Tapper, laughed nervously.
Nigel clasped his hands together and beamed at the men. “So good to meet you. We hear all about the EIA on Earth. Lone peacekeepers deep in the virgin ironwood forest. Hal is right; we want to know everything about Elfhome. Would you be up to an interview on what it’s like to be posted on Elfhome?”
“What?” Talley cried.
“Now?” Tapper asked.
“Well, after we’ve had a peek at your prisoner. It’s extraordinary that we’ve made contact with yet another intelligent race. Millions of years of just humans and now a plethora of other beings.”
“Yes…what?” Talley obviously wasn’t keeping up.
Jane glanced past the two into the room. It was one of the private hospital rooms looking out over the Mon River. They were on the top floor, two flights up from the window where Hal had filmed the male tengu kidnapping Tinker. Yumiko lay in her bed with a dozen tubes and wires connected to her body. She seemed unconscious. She was a tall, lean, small-breasted female with only a blanket to keep her decent. There was a bloodstained bandage on her left thigh. From where they stood in the doorway, the only indication that she wasn’t human was the tips of her black crow feet.
Jane’s heart dropped to see that Yumiko was shackled to the bed. She’d known there were strict government rules about using restraints in hospitals that meant patients were rarely bound by straps to their beds. (Yes, Hal was the reason she knew this. No, Mercy would not make an exception for Hal, no matter how much both she and the nuns thought it was a good idea.) Police-applied shackles, however, neatly bypassed those rules. She’d hoped that since the EIA brought the female unconscious to the hospital that they wouldn’t have restrained her. Apparently they were taking no chances with their prisoner.
Jane had thought she could fireman-carry Yumiko out of the hospital, depending on how hurt the female was. Between the elevators and their special parking spot, it wouldn’t have been too difficult. Jane knew that the railing on the beds could be partially dismantled. (Hal took things apart when bored.) It took time, though, to unscrew all the posts. (And to screw them back together.) They were going to have to steal the entire bed. This was not going to be easy.
“I’m—I’m not sure if we can allow…” Talley was trying to wedge into the narrative flow that Nigel was directing more to the camera than to him. He was trying to lock a steely gaze on Nigel but the camera kept distracting him.
Nigel wasn’t giving him the opportunity to derail him. “…wounded tengu was brought to Mercy Hospital and treated. Sergeant Talley, were you the one that rescued her from the trapped rubble?”
The EIA officer leaped for the opening. “Private Tapper and I were part of the team that was sifting through the rubble at Sandcastle.”
“We saw you there this afternoon!” Tapper added. “We heard you’re going after the monster that ate all those oni.”
Talley continued, steamrolling forward now that he found a safe subject. “The subject was pinned via a pipe through her thigh. We cut the pipe above and below her and brought her here to Mercy for it to be removed. This brought down the building on us.”
“And surgeons removed the pipe?” Nigel asked.
Oh, God, please let it have been removed already!
“Yes. They were all freaked out by her though; she’s half-bird.”
The conversation jerked to a halt as they all stared at the unconscious female.
“Brilliant!” Nigel stated. “I notice, though, she has no wings. Didn’t the male that kidnapped Tinker domi have very large wings? They were quite remarkable. I was hoping that I’d have a chance to see them in person.”
“Yeah.” Talley drawled out the word. “She didn’t have wings. We’re hoping to ask Sparrow when she gets here.”
Tapper had been nodding and shaking his head along with Talley’s responses. The blue EIA helmet was making him look like a bobblehead toy. “Her insides definitely are all bird.”
Nigel had been gradually moving them closer to the bed. It was unhurried, baby steps through the door, into the room, and then drifting nearer and nearer to their objective. Sergeant Talley drifted with them while the fearful Private Tapper (who obviously knew Hal better) stayed at the door. Jane ignored Hal, trusting him to do something, hopefully soon. Looking at him would only draw the guards’ attention to him. She was starting to secretly writhe inside with anticipation and fear. “Trust” was not a word she used lightly and usually never in connection with Hal except in some sarcastic meaning of the word. The only thing she actually trusted Hal to do was hit his mark, keep track of the camera, and maintain an informative and coherent monologue, even while being eaten alive.