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Someone looped an arm under Wolf's and pulled him to his feet.

"Shhhh," a male hissed, and then added in English. "Don't use magic."

The male was an Asian human. He tucked in under Wolf's arm, supporting him.

As Malice crashed loudly through the rubble, the man guided Wolf backward, unhurried. Malice scanned the room, swinging his head back and forth, as if searching for them without seeing them. What magic was this that the man had?

A cold chill went down Wolf's back as he realized that the male's ears were furred and pointed like a cat's. This was an oni like Lord Tomtom. Judging by Malice's seemingly blind search, the oni was keeping the dragon from seeing them. But why was the oni helping Wolf?

Malice stilled and the oni froze in place. The dragon cocked its head again as if listening closely. The oni male tightened his hold on Wolf as if worried that Wolf could act. Wolf, however, was under no illusions as to how useless his magic was at the moment.

The great beast grumbled, its voice like thunder, and it sniffed deeply. The massive head turned toward them and Malice stared long at where they stood. The oni stared back, gripping Wolf tightly.

Was the dragon truly fooled, or was Wolf the one being deceived? It was an uncomfortable thought—as was the awareness that the oni had hold of his good hand, making him totally helpless.

Malice stalked forward, muttering deeply. The dragon stopped again, now only a dozen paces from them. Malice rumbled out, seemingly in disgust; its breath washed over them. The oni pulled a container of red powder out of his pocket, and silently emptied it onto the floor. Malice sniffed deeply again, forming runnels in the dust at their feet breathing in the red powder. The dragon flung back its head, gave a series of deep coughing roars, and shuffled back suddenly, away from them.

The oni jerked Wolf backward and they hurried to a staircase at the corner of the room, and down the steps into darkness. Behind them, Malice smashed loudly, roaring, but Wolf couldn't tell in which direction the dragon was heading—after them or away. In the complete darkness, they made a series of quick turns. Either the oni could see in the darkness or was running blind with one hand on the wall.

"What is that red powder?" Wolf asked.

"Cayenne pepper."

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They turned again, and the black gave way. A grate stood half-open to a dimly lit tunnel crowded by three pipes thick around as an elf. The oni pulled Wolf into the tunnel and shut the grate.

"This way," the oni male said.

The floor was curved, making walking difficult. A hundred feet down, the tunnel joined another. Wolf knew that they couldn't be inside the museum anymore.

"What is this place?" Wolf asked.

"You ask a lot of questions."

"I like knowing where I stand."

"Yeah, nice when you can get it." The oni kept walking. "These are the old steam tunnels that used to heat all of Oakland."

"Who are you?"

"My name is my own to have," the oni said.

"That makes it awkward to thank you."

The oni paused to look at him. Finally, he said, "You can call me Tommy."

"Tommy," Wolf bowed. "Thank you."

Tommy grunted as if surprised.

"You are Lord Tomtom's son?" Wolf asked.

Tommy started down the tunnel without seeing if Wolf followed. "His bastard. Don't think that you did a disfavor to me by killing him. Quite the opposite. I would have killed him myself if I thought I could have gotten away with it."

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"I see."

"No, you don't. You have no idea. He raped my mother just to see if he could get a human pregnant. It took him months to get her knocked up, and he kept her tied to the bedpost the entire time. Even after I was born, he'd come to our place and beat the snot out of both of us and rape her again, just because he could."

"Is that why you helped me?"

Tommy glanced at Wolf, ears laid back. At the next intersection, he paused to ask quietly, "What am I?"

"You? You're an oni."

"The fuck I am. I'm a human."

"Your father—"

"Was a sadist pig." Tommy stalked off. "So my good, kind, beat-to-death mother doesn't count, even though she contributed half my genes, gave birth to me, and raised me to be a man? A human man. I'm
not
one of them. Not that that means shit to you elves."

Wolf had never considered that the half-oni would think of themselves as human. How could he refute the difference that mind-set made in a person? Making Tinker an elf had not changed her basically human outlook. If the half-oni had the capacity for human compassion, then it had to be logical that they could be revolted by the oni's lack of it.

"It means something to me," Wolf told Tommy.

Tommy stared at him again, as if trying to see into the inner workings of his mind. Perhaps he could. "We know that the plan is to kill all of us mixed-bloods alongside of the oni, but we're more willing to gamble on you elves being humane than the oni."

How ironic, that both sides were looking for humanity in the other.

"We don't want to be their slaves," Tommy continued. "We've had thirty years of that shit."

"Then why didn't you leave? There's a whole planet for you 'humans' to go to."

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Tommy made a sound of disgust. "It's all so black-and-white to you elves? I don't get how you can live so long and not realize the world is full of grey. We didn't leave because we couldn't."

"Why couldn't you?"

"You can't just walk out at Shutdown. The UN has fences and guards and you have to have the right papers or they throw you in prison. And even if you get past the guards, you need a birth certificate and social security numbers and high school diplomas to live in the United States. And you need money, or you're out on the street and starving."

"And you don't have these things?"

"The oni are masters of keeping power to themselves. They've got all the paperwork. They try to keep us from learning how to speak and read English. They know how much money we're making, and they'll beat us half to death if they even suspect we're trying to keep a little on the side. We don't know how many oni there are in Pittsburgh—who is a disguised oni and who isn't—so we can't even turn to the humans for help. The oni spy on us as much as they spy on you."

Wolf wasn't sure if Tommy was telling him the truth, but certainly it would explain how the oni kept control of the half-breeds. He could see ways around the oni enslavement—until he remembered that all the half-oni would have been born and raised in the oni control. A child could be kept ignorant, molded into believing it was helpless.

Tommy stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. The half-oni's ears twitched. Wolf caught an echo of harsh voices. He would have to accept it as real.

"There are oni ahead of us," Tommy whispered. "We can't go this way. I can only cloud their sight and they have noses like dogs."

Wolf nodded, and followed Tommy back to a tunnel they'd passed before. They went through a maze of turns and up a flight of stairs to go through another grate into a basement stacked high with cardboard boxes. The labels indicated that the boxes once held cans of food. Just as Wolf wondered whether they still contained their original contents, Tommy opened a door and the smell of cooking food flooded over them.

Beyond the door was a large kitchen filled with Asians. A low right-angled counter divided the kitchen off from the restaurant's dining room. The long leg into the dining room was a bakery display case filled with buns and breads.

"What are you doing here, Tommy?" one of the cooks, an old man, asked in Mandarin as he took a tray
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of buns from the oven. "Bringing him here?"

"The oni are in the steam tunnels," Tommy answered in the same tongue.

"Ugh!" the old man grunted. "You'll get us all killed."

Wolf looked at the crowded kitchen. "These are all mixed bloods?"

"No." Tommy wove through the cooks. "These are all humans. That was my great-uncle."

A herd of children galloped into the kitchen from a back room. Some could pass as human—might even be fully human—but mixed in were children with horns and tails. With cries of dismay, in ones and twos, the adults yanked the children out of Wolf's path, leaving only one child standing alone.

The little female looked up at him fearlessly and he knew her. Zi.

"Hi." She cocked her head, puzzled by his presence. She had a cookie in either hand. She held one up to him. "Do you want a cookie?" And when he hesitated, she added, "I didn't drop it or anything."

"Thank you." Wolf took the cookie with his left hand and bowed slightly to her. "That is very nice of you."

"Come on." Tommy caught him by the left wrist, and said in rough Low Elvish, "If oni find you here—they kill everyone."

"What is she doing here?" Wolf resisted being moved. He had demanded that the little female be kept away from people that would poison her against elves.

"No one else would take her. The humans are afraid of the oni and the oni don't give a shit. Look at me, I'm Lord Tomtom's son, and even I don't get a disguise to protect me."

Wolf scanned the kitchen, seeing this time that the children were in the arms of only small-framed, battered women. There were only two males, men made fragile by time. They used Mandarin in their fearful cries, and it was Chinese written on the signs posted around the room. The Skin Clan had used this kind of slavery—transporting women out of their homelands to places they couldn't speak the language and then tied them down with children.

He understood now Tommy's hate. It was the same hate that had fueled the genocide of the Skin Clan.

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Tommy suddenly pushed him back against the wall. "Stay still! I don't have my father's talent—I can't mask a moving object from multiple watchers. They will kill
everyone
if they find you here!" He glanced to his uncle. "Mask the scent!"

The uncle opened the fridge, took out a container, and flung the contents on the grill. An eye-watering reek filled the air. "Onions! Pepper!"

While some of the women quickly herded the children upstairs, others took out knives and attacked onions and bright red peppers. Tommy's focus was on the door. Moments later, it opened, and oni warriors crowded into the restaurant. There were a dozen large, red-haired, horned males. They had war paint on their faces and carried machine guns and swords. They snarled in Oni, wrinkling up their noses against the assault of smell.

The leader was the tallest among them. He set four of the warriors to watch the street and barked orders to the others. Three warriors raided the bakery counter. The rest moved into the kitchen and back rooms. The leader picked out a female, shoved her face down onto one of the tables, tore away her skirt, and forced himself into her with brutal casualness. The woman pressed knuckles into her mouth, stifling whimpers. No one else appeared even to notice, but Tommy locked down hard on Wolf's good arm.

The bakery raiders stuffed their mouths and pockets and then flung the buns to other warriors.

Outside, a deep roar from Malice echoed up the street.

"He sounds hungry." The leader spoke Mandarin so that the humans could understand. "He's probably looking for something to eat."

The warriors bayed with laughter and gestured at the frightened women. "We can feed him one of these fat sluts. That one looks like it has a fat ass."

The leader finished with the woman he was raping and slapped her buttocks. "Yes, a nice fat ass."

Their hunger satisfied, the warriors pelted each other with bread. The leader barked an order. The warriors gathered again at the front of the restaurant. The last one out of the back room, though, was carrying a whimpering, squirming Zi.

"Look what they have." The warrior held the little female out by the back of her shirt.

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The leader took her by her throat. He turned and shook the child at the human like rag doll. "What is this doing here?"

"The EIA—" Uncle stuttered. "They imprisoned her crazy mother."

The leader grunted. "If the elves find this here, they'll know that this place belongs to us."

"We'll move her." Uncle held out his arms but moved no closer to the warriors.

Without word or warning the oni leader broke Zi's neck.

Everyone had told Wolf about the oni savageness—but he hadn't comprehended it fully until too late. He gasped out in shock as the oni leader dropped the child's limp body onto the floor.

"Malice is coming. Throw this out onto the street for him to eat."

Wolf breathed in and anger burned through him like fire. Nothing mattered but to see these monsters dead. He jerked his arm free of Tommy, summoned a force strike and slammed it into the back of the oni leader. The front of the restaurant exploded out as the strike drove the oni male across the street. He made a bloody star on the far building. The warriors scrambled for cover, pulling out their machine guns.

"Hold still, you stupid elf fuck!" Tommy growled.

Wolf braced himself as he flicked through a fire burst. The oni bullets chewed through the other side of the restaurant. Apparently between Wolf's sudden attack and Tommy clouding their minds, the oni were disoriented as to where Wolf was really standing. The fire burst went off, igniting three of the oni into columns of flame.