The workstations were complete mysteries. She decided to ignore them and studied the wall instead. There were four trains showing on the board. One was the passenger train that had delivered the royal marines. It should be on its way to the freight yard in order to have its toilets emptied and the diesel engine refueled. It was just sitting at Union Station, idling. Law had heard that the railroad had been virtually stripped of human employees. It had left the elves too shorthanded to keep the system running smoothly.
Another train sat in the first siding beyond the Rim. Law couldn’t see what it was waiting on. If the mystery train was outbound, then there was nothing in its way for a hundred miles. If it was inbound, it would take precedence over the empty passenger train.
It seemed unlikely that the oni used the mystery train to transport Jewel Tear; it was too close to Pittsburgh. The city roads ended at the edge of the siding. The oni could have driven to that point within an hour. A train sitting for days would have drawn more attention than one car, even out that far.
Law studied the other two trains on the board. One was on the East Coast, just pulling out of the distant station. The other was inbound but hours away. Judging by its speed, the incoming train was another passenger train loaded with marines. They had been arriving nonstop for most of the week, hundreds at a time. If either train had been used to transport Jewel Tear, the elf was no longer on it.
How was she going to find where the oni stopped the supposedly empty outbound train?
A slight noise made her turn. A male elf in Wind Clan blue walked into the room from a door she hadn’t noticed.
“Who are you?” He came steamrolling toward her. “What are you doing here? This is a restricted area.”
Law backpedaled to keep out of reach of him. “I’m Joe Casey’s granddaughter. He’s a safety inspector…”
“Casey is dead.” He tried to catch hold of her arm.
Law dodged around one of the workstations. She pointed at the lone gleaming light on the wall. “I just wanted to know: what’s that train there?”
He didn’t even glance at the wall. “That is none of your business. You are not allowed in here. You must leave immediately.”
Law decided to show some of her cards in a bid to get him on her side. “I think the oni have control of that train.”
That made him pause. “Who told you that?”
She didn’t want to name Trixie since the girl hadn’t been identified as a half-oni, nor Tommy Chang, since it might poison the elves against anything she said. “What is that train? Is it supposed to be there?”
His body language changed from “I want you to leave” to “I don’t want you to escape.” He stalked forward, eyes narrowing. “Who knows about…”
Law realized she’d made a mistake. She’d backed into a corner in her attempt to keep from being thrown out before she had her say. Okay, this is about to get ugly.
He jerked to a halt as a flash of blue in Law’s side vision announced Bare Snow’s presence. His eyes widened as he recognized Bare Snow’s blue-black hair and storm-gray eyes. He backed up, fear spreading across his face.
He knew that Bare Snow was an assassin when none of the elves at the enclaves did.
The only people that knew of Bare Snow’s training were the ones that had tricked her into coming to Pittsburgh and tried to frame her for the attack on Windwolf.
He was Skin Clan.
Law punched him as hard as she could in a full roundhouse.
He went down and came back up with knives.
“Whoa!” Law jumped back. She hit the wall and tried to keep backing up.
He knew which one of them was more dangerous. He backpedaled, slashing at Bare Snow. His knives were human-made with blades of plain steel. Bare Snow parried his attacks. Made of magically sharped ironwood, her knives sliced through his. The steel blades went flying to land with a faint metallic ring.
With a hard lunge, Bare Snow nailed him to the wall with a knife through his right collarbone. The male cried out in pain. He started to curl around the blade but froze as Bare Snow pressed the tip of her other knife to his throat.
“Don’t kill him!” Law shouted.
“Why? He’s one of the Skin Clan’s mindless drones.”
“We need to ask him questions.”
“He doesn’t know anything,” Bare Snow growled. “He does their busy work without even knowing their true plans, happy with his ignorance. If he does know anything useful, he’ll die before he’ll tell us.”
“We could at least try asking him.” Law needed to explain “good cop/bad cop” to Bare Snow at some point.
Bare Snow snorted in contempt. “For thousands of years, they’ve believed the lies that their master told them. That they are superior to their fellow slaves. That their fellow slaves are nothing more than disobedient furniture. That our people have no more right than a chair to say what happens to their bodies.”
The male sneered at Bare Snow. “You worship at the altar of the gods and yet you refuse the same loyalty to your creator.”
“They’re thieves!” Bare Snow cried. “They steal everything! They stole everything that the gods gave to us. Like petty little children, they sifted through everything they’d stolen, tossed what they didn’t want into a dung heap, and then acted like everything else was their creation.”
“Bare! Bare!” Law cried as the tip of the blade had drawn blood. “One question!” Law pointed at the track display. “You can save yourself if you just tell us what you know about that train. Why is it just sitting there?”
“Shut up, monkey!” the male growled. “You gibber away pretending to speak our language when all you’re doing is aping the sounds. Nothing has been done to improve your people since you climbed down out of the trees. You still cling to the stupid idea of paradise after you’re dead because you live short, disease-ridden lives. Your people are only good as a constant reminder of how much our lords have done for us. That they will do again. We will be gods and you will stay ugly little…”
“My Law is not ugly!” Bare Snow shoved the blade home.
“Bare!” Law cried. “No!”
It was too late; the male was dead.
“Oh jeez, Bare! We didn’t find out anything.”
“He did not want to tell us about the train.” Bare Snow jerked out her knife to let his dead body slide down the wall. It left a smear of blood. “There are others of his ilk here. If the train were not important, he would have delayed us by answering all our questions in detail.”
Law glanced at the wall. What was so important about the train that he was willing to die for it?
The Elfhome railroad followed the Monongahela, bending and twisting with the river, the track bed built up from the level flood plains. At Charleroi, it used a newly built bridge to cross over the river. Beyond that point, the right of way wound its way in a mostly eastward direction, cutting through empty towns and abandoned farmland. The Rim had taken out the little town of Wyano leaving behind a large level area to build a siding.
Law took old Route 70 to Wyano. At the exit ramp, she turned off her motor. The back roads were quiet places and the oni would hear her Dodge coming. She coasted down the long hill into Wyano. The Rim sliced across through the heart of the small town, a thin band of destruction backed by towering mature ironwood trees. The forest was overtaking the town with saplings overshadowing the Earth maples and black cherries.
Just shy of the Rim, Law pulled into a weed-choked driveway.
“We’ll walk the rest of the way. It will be quieter.” Law climbed out. Brisbane scrambled down from the cab. “You stay with the Dodge, Brizzy.”