Brisbane complained loudly.
“You’re too loud and you walk too slow.” She pulled out a sack of wormy apples from the back of the truck. “I’ll make sure you won’t starve. You wait here.”
He grunted in disgust but accepted the offering of apples poured into a small pile beside the Dodge. She tried to estimate what he might eat in an hour since she didn’t want him wandering off; they might have to leave quickly.
She’d bought an illegal fully automatic Glock pistol in July. She never wanted to be on the losing end of a gunfight again. She belted on her holster and then checked the Glock’s magazine. She made sure she had her Bowie knife, a fanny pack of zip-ties, and her stungun/flashlight combo.
Bare Snow stripped down to her lovely alabaster skin. In the leafy shadows, her white-ink tattoos were imperceptible. She stretched in all manner of distracting ways. It did all sorts of things to Law’s heart to watch her. It had only been three months, but she couldn’t imagine life without Bare Snow.
“We need to be careful.” Law knew that it didn’t need to be said; Bare Snow had “careful” beaten into her by her mother. Law had been the one who had gotten shot in their last big fight. Still it felt like asking for a blessing; things would be good because they spoke the words aloud.
“They won’t know what hit them!” Bare Snow cried in English. Law wasn’t sure where she learned the phrase until Bare Snow added, “In the name of the moon, I will punish them.” She struck a Sailor Moon pose.
Walking with Bare Snow was like walking alone. Law knew that she was nearby but could neither see nor hear the female. Another person, she would have suspected of running ahead or falling behind, but she knew that Bare Snow worried for Law’s safety and kept close.
They crossed the cracked pavement of the abandoned street. Wyano had been a scattering of two-story wooden farmhouses on large lots. The paint on the homes had peeled off long ago and the exposed wood turned to gray. The houses hunched like ghosts in yards given over to ironwood saplings. Law picked her way carefully through the dead leaves, trying not to make noise and failing. Hidden sticks snapped and popped under Law’s feet. Someplace nearby, Bare Snow walked silently. Law caught sight of her shadow once or twice and wished that she hadn’t. It would be better if Bare Snow’s invisibility were flawless.
The saplings became mature trees as they crossed the Rim. Another fifty feet of virgin forest and they reached the main line railroad tracks. Ironwoods overshadowed the track bed, keeping the berm free of underbrush. The twin shining rails came from the west in a straight shot. To the east, they disappeared around a bend as the track bed curved to avoid a steep hillside. Law’s footsteps crunched loudly on the crushed rock ballast. She shifted over to the creosote-soaked wooden ties.
They’d walked for only half a mile before Law could pick out voices in the distance. She moved back into the shadows of the forest. The ironwood trees had been trimmed back to make room for the siding. The switch was set to let the main line trains pass. Because of the thick row of trees between the two sets of tracks, the passing trains couldn’t see the mystery train sitting in the siding.
It was a twelve-car passenger train. Its wedge-nosed diesel engine purred in a rough idle, facing west toward Pittsburgh. Royal marines moved purposely in and out of the forest beside the siding. It looked as if all eighty-four seats of the passenger cars were full, putting the number of marines on board at a thousand. The last car was a general-purpose flatcar. It was stacked with the tents like the ones she’d seen the marines loading onto the horse-drawn wagons at Union Station.
Law crouched in the shadows, feeling relieved and disappointed. The mystery train was just another troop carrier bringing in more royal marines. The other two inbound trains were probably more of the same. Law couldn’t tell why this one had stopped or what the marines were doing. Something felt very wrong but she couldn’t put a finger on it.
She cautiously worked her way toward the trees where the marines were coming and going. Any time she’d dealt with the Fire Clan troops, they’d always been curious and nonthreatening, but that was in Pittsburgh, where they expected to find humans. They might not be so friendly if she popped up unannounced in the woods.
The marines had beaten a path through the bracken. Their footprints were deep, as if they had carried something heavy into the forest. She’d gone several hundred feet down the path before she found the naked body.
Law stumbled to a halt, covering her mouth to keep in a shout of dismay. It was a young male elf. His hair was Fire Clan red. His skin was a strange cherry color. Law tore her gaze from the body and scanned the area. Ahead of her lay hundreds of bodies, all naked, all cherry red. What in hell happened to them? Why were the marines dumping them here? Elves had a thing about cremation; they thought it freed the soul from the body. This was an abomination to them.
She stumbled deeper into the forest, trying to understand what she was seeing. She wasn’t even sure what killed the elves. They appeared to be all in the same stage of rigor mortis, which meant they all died about three hours earlier.
An odd shift of shadows and the scent of bruised apples told her that Bare Snow was beside her.
“Kyanos poisoning,” Bare Snow whispered. “I wonder how the oni poisoned them. It could not have been by something they drank or ate or they would not all have died at the same time. I know of no magic that could do this.”
Traps were tricky things. A crayfish trap was only effective for a short time; given enough time, even brainless crayfish figured out a way to escape. How could you kill a thousand people?
“I don’t know about this kyanos poison,” Law said. “If it can be made into a gas, it would be a way you could kill this many people at once. The train goes through several tunnels. That would restrict the airflow. If they released a gas just as the train entered a tunnel, then it would remain trapped in the passenger cars. It would be like a mobile gas chamber. But why kill them? Who are they?”
“These are laedin-caste Fire Clan. These must be the real royal marines. What we saw were disguised oni in stolen uniforms.”
“Are you sure?”
“How those others move is wrong. There is no cohesion. Their stride is too wild.”
Law thought of the troops she’d seen in town. Despite their fearless curiosity, the marines still moved like soldiers. They set guards that stood at parade rest. They unconsciously matched strides when they walked abreast. What’s more, she had only seen males at the siding. The elves did gender equality in spades; between immortality and their low birth rate, females weren’t restricted to support positions. The marines in town had been an equal mix of males and females.
“Half of Pittsburgh is going to be here,” Tiffani had said. “It makes for a damn big target. I’m going to walk up to the train tracks…they’re right there close enough to touch.”
“Shit!” Law hissed. The oni were going to attack Oktoberfest dressed as elves! It would be a massacre. Anyone that survived would testify on the victims’ grave that the killers were royal marines. Every human in Pittsburgh would take up weapons against the elves.
She had to stop that train. Somehow. She thought of the thousand armed oni dressed as marines. First she should warn someone, just in case she failed. She ducked behind a massive ironwood and took her phone out of her pocket. There was no signal. She waved her phone about, hoping to pick up something.
Who should she call? The EIA? She didn’t trust them. Pittsburgh Police? No, getting more humans involved would just play to the Skin Clan’s plan. It had to be elves. She needed to get hold of someone like Chili Pepper; he’d listen to her. The enclaves, however, didn’t have phones.