Wolf nodded. “Unfortunately, it will be dark soon.”
Someone was hammering upstairs. The hammering stopped, and something large moved overhead accompanied with odd rhythmic clicking noise.
Wolf cocked his head, trying to place the sound. “What is that?”
Stormsong glanced toward Earth Son standing in the street, just outside the open door, and lowered her voice. “Domi’s nagarou brought the little dragon, so the humans can see what we’re fighting.”
Interesting how one afternoon could change your perspective on size.
Maynard had caught Stormsong’s caution and spoke quietly in English. “Briggs and Durrack are seeing what works against it.”
Wolf couldn’t decide if this was ingenious or unwise. He found the stairs leading up to the one large open room taking up the entire second story. The windows had been boarded shut and mattresses leaned against the walls. The dragon and others were in the far corner, standing around a computer set up on the floor. While Oilcan and Durrack were focused on the screen, Briggs and Little Horse and Cloudwalker were standing back and watching the dragon.
All beings — dragon, humans and elves — looked up when he arrived with his Hand.
“Domou.” Little Horse acknowledged his arrival.
“What are you doing here?” Wolf thought he had sent his blade brother back to the enclaves.
“There is nothing I can do for domi, but she would want her nagarou safe. Surely, the oni will try and take back the little dragon.”
Wolf glanced at his domi’s nagarou. There was so much of Tinker in his appearance that it hurt — her mouth, her eyes, and her haphazard haircut. In the hectic last two months, he’d not spoken once to the young man. Wolf realized now that Tinker was Oilcan’s only family; he was now quite alone. Wolf could not imagine it; an elf only found himself alone if he was exiled from his clan. Clans were so vast, that natural disaster would lay low entire households and families and there would still be someone left to be responsible for the orphans.
Wolf had been lax toward Oilcan because he was an adult — if he was an elf, Oilcan would have chosen a clan that superseded all family responsibilities. That had been wrong of Wolf. Even if he lifted Tinker out of her species, it did not completely free her of her culture’s obligations — and as her domou, her responsibilities was his own. But beyond that, it been wrong of him to be a stranger to the one person that Tinker loved as much as life.
Oilcan cautiously separated himself from the dragon, as if he didn’t fully trust either the dragon or the warriors from either race. “Wolf Who Rules.” Oilcan gave a proper bow. “I heard about Malice on the scanner,” he said in High Tongue. Sorrow filled his eyes as he spoke, and then was firmly put aside. “I thought we might learn something from Impatience.”
“Thank you, nagarou. That was wise of you.” Wolf dropped to low Elvish, and put a hand to the young man’s shoulder.
A smile flashed over Oilcan’s face, then vanished as he sighed. “Unfortunately, most of what we’ve found out so far isn’t good.”
“I did not expect anything else. What have we found out?”
“Well, there was a question if Impatience and Malice are both really dragons, given their size and various other differences. From what we’ve pieced together, we think they are. In Chinese mythology, the four claw dragons are considered common dragons but the imperial dragon has five claws. We think the variations are racial instead of species differences, and possibly represent political differences too.”
“Tengu worship five claws — they — compassionate guardians of tengu in past,” Durrack spoke very rough low Elvish. “Four claws — they have bad reputation — they work with the oni without being enslaved. Malice is not enslaved.”
“Now, the dragons can’t maintain its shields all the time,” Oilcan patted Impatience on the head, showing that the little dragon’s shields were currently down. “It takes them approximately thirty seconds to raise their shields.”
Durrack abandoned low Elvish, to add in English. “If we could catch Malice completely unaware, a sniper might be able to take him out with a well-placed bullet. But once his shield goes up, things get tricky.”
Oilcan murmured a translation to Little Horse and Cloudwalker, and then added in Elvish. “The shields, while they use ambient magic, they’re very efficient and translate all kinetic energy — including the motion of the dragon’s body — somehow into magic. Bullets, rockets, baseballs—” Oilcan nudged a ball on the floor that they apparently had been using in their experiments. “— anything you can throw at them — will only make them stronger.”
“And they can keep the shields up while they phase through walls.” Durrack patted a wooden partition erected next to him. Impatience took this as a request to demonstrate his phasing abilities. His mane lifted up and he shimmered into a ghostly haze and leapt through the wall and returned.
“Good boy!” Oilcan produced a large gumball from his pocket and gave it to the dragon, who chewed it with obvious relish. “We believe your lightening will cross the barrier because it’s composed of a different type of energy particle.”
“Electricity works.” Durrack lifted up half a cattle prod. “We established that.”
Impatience snatched the cattle prod out of the NSA agent’s hand and phased it into the wall. When the little dragon let go, the cattle prod remained as part of the wall. The other half, Wolf noticed, was already part of the wall. Apparently the little dragon didn’t like that test.
“As a one shot deal, pepper spray will work.” Durrack picked up an aerosol can. “Of course, it only annoys the hell out of them, and then the dragon changes it shields so that gas won’t penetrate.”
“I’m stunned you are all still alive.” Wolf realized that Impatience had to be remarkably forgiving to put up with these experiments.
“We talked first.” Oilcan said.
Briggs scoffed. “We drew pictures and did a lot of pantomime.”
“He seems to understand what’s going on.” Oilcan said. “He seems to hate both Malice and the oni, but he’s made it clear that he can’t beat Malice in a fight.”
“How do oni enslave the dragons in the first place? Do the tengu say?”
Durrack shook his head. “No.”
Wolf wondered if this was the truth. While he trusted Oilcan to be as forthright as Tinker, the NSA clearly saw themselves as separate powers with all that implied.
After the accident, and the various course corrections, the Dahe Hao’s low orbit didn’t put them within range of the Wind Clan spell stones at Aum Renau. After discussing their fuel situation and the reliability of their engines, they decided to look for stones elsewhere within a mei. The spell stones were large enough, and distinctive enough that the pattern recognition software found several sets. It was impossible to distinguish which clan the stones belonged to, but they found four grouped together in the place the crew nicknamed Giza.
“There are four major clans — wind, fire, water, stone — so I think it’s a safe bet that it’s one set for each major clan.” At least, Tinker hoped it was. She knew there were lesser clans, but she didn’t know anything about them. “At this speed, though, we’re already out of range, so I’ll have to wait until next orbit to check.”
“You’ve got about an hour and a half then.” Esme murmured a curse as something flashed red on her monitor. “But we’re drifting again. We’re going to have to do another course correction.”