Geoffrey started a furniture making business after he graduated from high school. He was the first, and so far the only human in Pittsburgh crafting ironwood. He took over an abandoned warehouse at the edge of McKees Rocks so that he could take delivery of massive ironwood logs either by road, or river, or train. It was only a few blocks from Tinker’s salvage yard and John Montana’s gas station. Lathes, saws, drills, lumber and endless sawdust filled the big warehouse. Pieces of furniture in various stages of completion were scattered everywhere.
“Oh, this is brilliant!” Nigel cried. “Simply smashing! We must do at segment on this!”
“Paired with what?” Jane asked since they couldn’t fill a full hour with carpentry. Maybe they could cover other elf crafts like pottery and weaving. They could ask Geoffrey’s best friend, Carl Moser, if they could invade his artist commune. Moser had set up his place like an enclave and had attracted several young elves to live with him and his lover, Briar Rose.
“Ironwoods and Black Willows!” Hal suggested as a pairing.
Jane didn’t want to tangle with a Black Willow with anything short of a tank or a missile launcher. “If the oni throw one at the city, then, maybe.”
“It would be good for your little brother!” Hal said. “Think of it as a TV commercial played on an Earth Network — for free!”
It would be good for Geoffrey.
They found her little brother in his office, asleep at his desk, buried under paperwork. Geoffrey had gone from Harry Potter T-shirts to full out elvish style. He wore a beautiful shirt of handwoven blue silk shot with lines of smoke gray, handmade carpenter pants made of denim and ironwood rivets, the lace-up knee high boots favored by the laedin-caste hunters, and a blue ribbon braided through his honey-gold hair. There were dark rings under his eyes. Jane had never seen him look so exhausted.
“What’s wrong?” Jane asked after waking him.
“Oh, it’s just I’ve been going non-stop since Shutdown.” He yawned, stretched, and shuffled to a coffee maker. “I’ve been working with the bunnies. Usagi and her crew. The newest bunny, Widget, the girl who hacked the surveillance cameras for us during the fight? She was helping me set up my books on the computer instead of doing them by hand. That got me talking business with Usagi.”
Geoffrey paused to yawn again and pour a cup of coffee. “Usagi is like some kind of business wizard. She got a MBA from Wharton, which is like the best business school on Earth. She set me up with this upscale furniture gallery in New York City, walked me through all the EIA export paperwork, the taxes forms, and lined me up with a reliable shipping company. We set this freaking ridiculous price on that big canopy bed that I made on spec, more money that I’ve seen in my life. I thought she was crazy, but Usagi kept saying that state-side, rich people spend like crazy on custom work. I got a call during Shutdown. Tinker’s marriage to Windwolf triggered a sudden craze and they wanted another bed, rush order. It took us six months to make that bed and they want a second one by September Shutdown. They called back a few hours later and ordered two more. They’ve already sold the one in the store to the first customer that walked in the door and the one that they’d ordered earlier. The additional two were because they figured that the beds will go like hotcakes.”
“Oh, that’s terrific!” Jane said.
“Yeah, good news is I’m freaking rich! Bad news is I’ve got to get three beds out in half the time it took me to make one. Between killing the monsters and working here, I’m ready to go down face first. What are you doing here? Is something wrong with Boo?”
“We need help finding the namazu underwater nests.” Jane explained how the naturalist believed that the monsters followed the catfish spawning patterns based on the nest that they found at Sandcastle. “Do you know any spells that work under water? Or know someone that can cast the spell?”
Geoffrey winced. “No, I don’t know anything like that. I’ve learned a handful of scry spells but they mostly find things like lei lines and the location of specific marked items. Like you can put a mark on a piece of paper, and then later pinpoint where that piece of paper is within the city. Or the dau mark like the one that Windwolf put on Tinker. Normally you should be able to track the person wearing it. I’m not sure how the oni are blocking that.” He frowned a moment. “Actually, you might ask Yumiko. The tengu might know more about magic than I do.”
“Could you do magic?” Nigel asked shyly. “We’ve heard so much about it, but we haven’t actually seen a spell cast. I don’t think anyone ever filmed someone casting magic before.”
Geoffrey looked to Jane to see if she allowed it.
Jane nodded. “Okay, let’s set up a shoot. I’ll see if I can get hold of Yumiko.”
Yumiko answered the phone with a cautious single word. “Yes?”
“Do you know anyone that can pinpoint fish eggs under water?” Jane said.
Yumiko snorted. “Maybe.”
Jane waited to see if the female elaborated. She didn’t. Obviously Yumiko didn’t trust cell phones conversations to stay private. Jane wondered if the tengu knew that the phones were being monitored by the oni. “I need help finding the eggs before they can hatch.”
“I’ll come to you.” Yumiko hung up without asking where Jane was.
Was the tengu watching her?
It wouldn’t be too hard to keep an eye on her team; they were driving around in the big Chased by Monsters production truck with the logo painted on the side. One could not get more obvious.
Tooloo was standing next to the CBM truck with a chicken. The old elf was wearing a gown of fairy silk, high top tennis shoes, and a red ribbon to hold her very long, very white hair in a loose braid. The chicken was a large gaudy rooster on a leash. Both elf and chicken were eyeing the CBM logo closely, cocking their heads back and forth as if puzzled by it.
Jane’s big elfhound, Chesty, had been trailing behind her. When he saw the roosters, he huffed with annoyance and hid behind Jane. He had a thing about roosters — they were short-tempered homicidal idiots that he wasn’t allowed to kill.
“Hi.” Jane knew Tooloo mostly by reputation and a handful of visits to her store to buy honey, milk and eggs. The elf (or half-elf, rumors conflicted to her nature) was known to be quirky to the point of possibly insane. She was, however, harmless, a potential fan of Hal Rogers (she rented DVDs, so she most likely owned a television) and possible source for information on the oni. “Can I help you?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Tooloo reached out and traced the jagged teeth of the logo.
The rooster noticed Chesty. It ruffled up. “Bok caw!” It strained on its leash, trying to reach the bear-size dog, clucking loudly. “Bok caw!”
“Have you ever played poker with a child?” Tooloo ignored the angry chicken.
“Yes,” Jane said slowly. It was not the direction she thought the conversation was going to go. She shifted to block the rooster. “I have five younger brothers.”
“Then you know playing with a child is always annoying. They don’t understand that the cards are just part of the game. They don’t have the maturity to grasp the hidden, unwritten side. They think everyone will play by the rules that they were taught and nothing else. They don’t realize people will lie to win. And most importantly, they don’t know how to keep their joy and sorrow hidden.”
“Yeah, I know.” No holds barred poker was the game of choice when her extended family gathered. Her cousins were ruthless. Her younger brothers had a baptism of fire when it came to developing a poker face.