Cana Lily cast a wide scry to the east. The oni reinforcements were coming.
There could be no doubt: this was a trap.
26: TRIGGER THE TRAP
Tristan had just finished up piecing together a solid fake identity when he noticed a hush falling over the camp. He had been only vaguely aware of the low murmur of voices as the troops worked around the cabin he occupied. But now the warriors had all gone silent. Tristan lifted his head and listened intently. The high whine of a speeding hoverbike was growing louder as it raced toward them.
“We’re getting company!” Lucien called out in English. “One of the Eyes! Remember, I don’t want them to know about your mission.”
Tristan stuffed the iPad and all the papers back into the messenger bag. With his work hidden away, he pulled on his demon mask and went out to greet the incoming rider.
“I have what I need,” Tristan said, adjusting his mask. He handed back Lucien’s messenger bag. “Are you sure it’s one of our little sisters?”
Lucien took the bag and handed it to one of his trusted underlings. “No one else would ride at that speed.”
True, while they weren’t that far from Pittsburgh, they were in virgin forest. There were nothing more than deer trails through the thick forest bracken and fallen branches.
They had had five little sisters: Adele, Bethany, Chloe, Danni, and Felicie. Chloe was dead. Which of the four was coming? He hadn’t seen any of them since they graduated from college. He hoped it was Bethany. She was his favorite. He was afraid, though, that something horrible had happened to sweet little Bethany.
A few years back, he’d been suddenly forbidden to even mention his younger sisters. He had thought it had been in reaction to his mother having dreams of stolen children. In hindsight, the nightmares had been triggered by the birth of the twins, but he had assumed that his mother’s gift had uncovered the truth about the Eyes.
Since he’d arrived on Elfhome, he had caught guarded references to the girls — no, women, as they were no longer young. All except Bethany. If she’d ever been in Pittsburgh, all traces of her had been wiped out. He suspected now that the sudden silence on Earth hadn’t been about his mother’s dreams but something that his father had done. Something that his father didn’t want to be known by his mother and perhaps the other Eyes, and maybe even Tristan himself.
What had their father done to Bethany?
He pushed the question out of his mind, focusing instead on the sound of the hoverbike. It was most likely to be Danni, who worked closest to Lucien. She had been the one who forced Lucien into transforming Boo. She was also the one most likely to oppose any plan of recapturing Lucien’s lost love.
“Our baby sisters can’t read minds,” Lucien murmured even as the whine of the engine grew louder, “but I’ve found it’s best not to think of things you don’t want them to know about. Thoughts are the precursor of actions. When you create a plan, it’s as if you’ve set up vibrations in the likely outcome to your actions. The Eyes sense those vibrations, just like sharks can detect the trashing of a swimmer.”
In other words, Tristan should clear his head of any plans he had for tracking down Boo.
What was safe to think about? What possibly could have happened to Bethany? Probably not.
The hoverbike roared through camp, ten feet up and going close to a hundred miles per hour. It slammed into an insane turn to spiral upward even as it braked hard. The woman on the bike was wearing camo coveralls, a green helmet, and an assault rifle strapped across her back. Danni wouldn’t be caught dead in camo. It was Adele.
Once her forward momentum was at zero, Adele floated back down to land beside Tristan.
“Oh, look at you!” She killed the hoverbike’s engine. “You’re still so tiny! Have you grown at all since I left New York?”
“I’m bigger.” Tristan resisted the urge to stand up straighter. Humans used to say it to him all the time. He’d forgotten how annoying it was. At least now it didn’t make him cry because he knew that one day he would eventually grow up.
She threw back her head and laughed. She sounded like Lucien when she laughed like that. She picked Tristan up, spun him around, and then gave his head a hard knuckle rub.
“Ow!” Tristan cried.
“You’re hurting him,” Lucien said. “Leave him be. You might be seen.”
“I won’t. You know that I know that I won’t,” Adele said.
Tristan glanced about and saw that she was right. They were screened on all sides by the cabins.
“What are you doing here?” Lucien said.
“Pffft.” She pulled off her helmet, revealing that she had buzzcut her hair to a military crop. Their father wouldn’t be pleased; he had a thing about long hair. Her pale blond hair had started to gray already. Chloe’s picture in the paper had looked so much like their mother that it hurt. Adele never had the same polished style; she looked like she could be a long-lost, chain-smoking biker aunt. “I need to talk to our glorious god-emperor father. It was easier to come here than to head out cross-country for a mei and hope to catch Heaven’s Blessing.”
During his thousands of years exiled on Earth, their father had used many false names. Adele had used his true name, the one he had been known by when he ruled all of Elfhome.
“He’s coming here?” Lucien pointed at the ground at his feet littered with gnawed bones.
Adele posed dramatically, the back of her right hand pressed to her forehead, her eyes closed. “So I have foreseen!” She threw her hands up to spin in a circle. “Oh, my God! Sunshine! It feels so good to get out of that cave! I’ve been stuck there in the dark for forever!”
“Stuck?” Tristan asked. “Why were you stuck in a cave?”
“Because Heaven’s Blessing wanted me to see what was happening on Earth! It was one of those tiny, tiny spyholes between worlds. I’ve been stuffed inside a small cave, waiting for some useful vision to hit me, and praying that a family of raccoons wouldn’t show up wanting to den for the winter. Do you have any candy? I’m dying for chocolate.”
“Who has never grown up?” Lucien rooted through his satchel to pull out a plastic bag filled with individually wrapped chocolate truffles. It surprised Tristan that Lucien had candy with him, considering how light they were traveling. Had his brother “seen” that Adele would show up? Or was the candy just a side product of Lucien’s excessive sweet tooth? Lucien held out the bag but pulled it back just before Adele took any. “What did you see?”
“Oh, don’t be like that.” Adele pouted.
“Once they’re gone, they’re gone.” Lucien rustled the bag. “We won’t see chocolate from Earth until the war is won.”
Adele snorted. “I know you’ve got an entire warehouse of food stocked up with things like that.”
“For me and the people that make me happy,” Lucien said.
“Fine.” Adele promised to share information by reaching out and twiddling her fingers. “I might as well tell you. Heaven’s Blessing won’t give me a private audience, so my news will be common knowledge in about an hour.”
Lucien dipped the bag forward and she grabbed a big handful of the truffles.
“You’re his heir now,” she continued, unwrapping the first truffle. “As much as the immortal god-emperor Heaven’s Blessing needs a heir.”
Lucien’s eyes went wide and then he pulled his mask down over his face. “Yves is dead?”
Adele popped the truffle in her mouth. “Uh-huh.”
“What happened to him?” Tristan asked.
“Hm?” Adele shrugged, eyes closed, focusing on the taste of the chocolate. “So good.”