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Wolf slammed a force strike at the last oni. A second bloody star joined the first.

"What the fuck was that?" Tommy screamed. "She was dead! This does nothing but make you feel better! All those women and children are now dead because you had to be a hero!"

Someone as young as the half-oni couldn't understand that to be immortal was to have forever to regret.

Wolf knew if he had let the oni walk away unpunished, he would not be able to live with himself. But Tommy was right. He had brought danger down on the rest—the human mothers and half-oni children.

"I'll see that they're safe until this is done."

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"Yeah, that will make the kids safe! Until you kill them for no other reason than their mothers were raped by the wrong species."

"I give you my word—they will not be harmed."

Tommy caught himself from saying anything else, and stood, fists balled, panting.

"Windwolf?" Oilcan murmured in Wolf's ear. "If you're the one that just took out the Changs' restaurant, Malice is coming your way."

Wolf glanced out into the street where the oni still burned like massive candles. "Malice is coming. Get the others. We need to move to someplace safe."

Tommy's cat ears flicked. "Oh fuck. He is coming." Tommy went off to gather the women and children.

Wolf gazed again the wreckage he was leaving behind. Tinker was rubbing off on him.

22: END OF THE RAINBOW

Briggs drove while the rest of them sat in the back. Tinker had grabbed a flex screen from the ship and now spread it out on the floor. Downloading the dreadnaught's layout and defenses, they planned the assault.

"The dreadnaught's biggest weakness is that it wasn't built with an aerial attack in mind. It's like a turtle, with lots of service hatches down in through its shell. Also it tends to be blind in the butt. I was going to fix that with a turret on top."

"Prince True Flame said that it was useless for fighting the dragon because it couldn't defend against from attacks from above," Pony said.

"That's true," Tinker said. "So we're going to have to kill Malice before he has a chance to close."

"Oh, fun," Esme muttered.

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"But the airship is vulnerable to the tengu," Tinker said. "I think if we fly up behind it, we can approach it unseen—but it leaves a very choppy wake."

"We can handle it,
domi
." Jin waved off the worry.

Domi
. That drove her commitment to them home and left her a little breathless.
I'm responsible for
them—and I'm taking them straight into danger
. But what recourse did she have? Just as the elves were not about to let the oni live, the oni couldn't leave any of the elves alive either.

"We need three things." Tinker forced herself to focus on the plan and not how badly it might end. "We need to keep the ship in the air, pick where it goes, and fire the cannons. So, that means we need to secure the fore and aft engine compartments, the cannon turrets, and the bridge."

Pony gazed at the plan for a moment, and then pointed to the access hatch nearest to the rear, which opened to the aft engine compartment. "We'll enter here. Once we've secured it, we'll break into teams.

These tengu are good with machines—yes?" Getting a nod from Tinker, Pony continued. "There are three doors to this area including the hatch, so Little Egret and four tengu will stay."

Jin assigned Xiao Chen and three of the other tengu to the aft team.

"The rest of us will then move to the fore engine compartment and take it." Pony traced a route across the top of the airship to the forwardmost service hatch. "Four doors open to this area, but we'll control what's beyond these two doors. Rainlily and four of the tengu will hold this position. We split here.
Domi
and Cloudwalker will take the bridge with Esme, Jin, and Durrack—which should be lightly manned and will have only one door not controlled by us. Stormsong and Briggs will come with me. We'll take the main cannon turret—which will be heavily manned."

Tinker explained how she planned to kill Malice. "Now when this spell goes off, you're going to lose your shields and it might take a minute or two before a normal level of magic is restored," she warned her Hand. "Your beads should be protected from the spell effects, so if you save the power in them, you can recast your shields immediately."

The
sekasha
nodded, indicating that they understood.

Durrack pressed his hand to his ear and listened to it intently. "Okay. Understand." He knocked on the partition to the driver's cabin. "Briggs? Where are we?"

"Nearly to McKees Rocks Bridge," Briggs answered.

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"The dreadnaught is here." Durrack tapped the map just downriver of Neville's Island, and then ran a finger up the Ohio River toward Pittsburgh. "They're following the river."

"If we're carrying others, we won't be able to climb fast," Jin said. "We should start high, like at the edge of a cliff or on top of a building."

"They'll come over the bridge," Pony pointed to the bridge. "We can wait on the supports. The bridge will give us cover, and then the tengu can take us aloft."

"That will work," Jin said.

Nearly a mile and a half long, the McKees Rocks Bridge stretched across the wide, flat Ohio River valley in a complex string of structures—more a chain of bridges than one single bridge. The part that actually sat above the river was a seven hundred feet long trussed-arch bridge. On each side of the elegant steel curve were two massive stone pylons. They hid the truck in the shadows of the western pylon.

The cloudy night was on their side—it cloaked them in darkness.

"I hear it." Jin put out a hand to Tinker. "I'll take you up."

The other eight tengu paired off with the humans and elves.

It was a short spring up to the arching steel. They crouched down, tucking themselves in the crossbeams.

The roar of the dreadnaught grew louder.

"There! See it?" Jin whispered.

Twin searchlights appeared in the distance, slashing downwards; the cockpit was a pale gleam between them. The dreadnaught moved up the broad valley, keeping between the hills that flanked the Ohio River.

The searchlights played back and forth in a narrow arc, directly in front of the airship.

Durrack glanced upriver toward the darkened city and then back to the oncoming dreadnaught. "They're
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probably following the river because it's the most recognizable landmark they can see with the power out."

"Lucky for us," Jin said. "They're going slow so they don't hit anything. That will make it easier for us to get to it."

In the dark, the true size of the dreadnaught was lost. It was a wedge of darkness behind the searchlights' brilliance. They crouched in the bridge's shadows as the gleaming spots moved across the shimmer of the water, encountered the bridge, and played up and over the network of steel struts. Tinker held still, heart hammering, trying not to think about the machine gun cannons. Her luck on this kind of thing had been so bad lately.

The cockpit slid overhead, and the belly of the dreadnaught followed, the air throbbing. Ushi with Pony leapt upward, the rustle of his black wings spreading lost under the rumble of the dreadnaught's engines.

As he took his first downstroke, Xiao Chen with Stormsong vaulted after him. Niu and Zan rose together. Tinker lost sight of them in the dreadnaught's eclipse.

Jin took hold of Tinker and murmured, "Hang on." And then they were airborne.

Amazingly, in some strange heart-stopping manner, winging upward was fun. In her flights with Riki, she had been so concerned about their end destination that she never noticed the thrill of flying. Did it say something about her that as long as she knew where they were going, she could enjoy the ride?

Jin landed them between Ushi and Xiao Chen.

"I think I envy you," Stormsong murmured to Xiao Chen.

Tinker smothered a laugh, and whispered. "Yeah, once you get used to it, it's fairly cool."

"It's wood!" Jin whispered, running his hand over the hull's surface.

"Of course," Tinker whispered. "These are elves."

Her Hand activated their shields. Pony asked a question with blade talk. Getting a nod from the others, he opened the hatch and the
sekasha
dropped down into the dim engine room.

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She had never seen the elves really fighting before. Not a full Hand against hordes, unconcerned for her protection because she was safe behind her own shield. She hadn't expected it to be so beautiful. Their swordplay became a fluid dance, the oni seeming like paper cutouts instead of real opponents. The dreadnaught, though, was buzzing like a kicked beehive, and they had spread themselves thin.

On the bridge, Tinker used her shield to back the oni warriors away from the door. Cloudwalker slipped around her on the right and Durrack went left.

"Don't shoot any of the instruments!" Tinker had her pistol out, but was afraid to fire. She rarely hit what she aimed at and all the controls were vital to their success.

"I—don't—miss." Durrack picked his shots with deliberation. "Someone get the pilot before he crashes us!"

Two warriors blocked Tinker.

"Esme, the pilot." Jin spun on one heel and kicked one of the warriors out of Tinker's path. Tinker edged sideways, covering Esme as her mother scrambled into the low cockpit.

The ship banked hard to the left, rushing toward the hills that lined the valley, Esme struggled with the oni pilot.

"Tinker!" Esme cried. "We need to lift! Pull up on the collective."

Dropping her shield, Tinker scrambled into the cockpit and grabbed hold of the collective control stick and pulled up. The engines roared louder and they started to climb.

"Tinker!" Jin shouted warning, and she ducked instinctively.

Bullets sprayed the windshield just over her head. A dozen bullet holes reduced the Plexiglas to a haze of cracked glass.

The oni pilot kicked Tinker backward. She hit the cracked windshield; it held for a moment then gave way. She screamed, flailing, and caught hold of the pilot's leg as she fell. Her weight jerked him half out the cockpit. He grabbed the edge of the cockpit before he fell the whole way out. They dangled far above the last mile of I-279 before it ended at the Rim, the oni pilot holding onto the airship and Tinker onto his leg.

"Jin!" Esme shouted, struggling to keep the airship aloft and reach for the oni pilot at the same time. "I
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can't reach her!"

Jin shouted; his words resonated against Tinker's senses with magic.

The oni pilot clawed at the edge of cockpit, trying to pull himself up. He grasped the windshield wiper and started to pull himself up.

The wiper snapped and he fell—and Tinker with him.

Tinker screamed and Esme, staring down at her, cried out in dismay.

Then someone caught Tinker's wrist, and she was jerked hard in both directions.

"Let go of him!" Keiko cried, flapping madly. "I can't catch you both; we'll all fall."

"No! No! No!" the pilot wailed, dangling upside down by Tinker's grip on his leg. But she wasn't strong enough to hold his weight by one hand. He slipped out of her hold and plunged downward again. The clouds had slid away and moonlight gleamed silver on the pavement below. The pilot dwindled to doll size but still hit the road with a loud carrying thud, a sudden burst of wet on the grey pavement.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Keiko cried as they continued to slowly fall. "You're still too heavy."

Xiao Chen swooped down and tried to intercept them.

Keiko hissed in anger, bringing up her razor-sheathed feet. "She's charmed by the Chosen's blood. She's not to be hurt!"

"You heard her," Riki glided in. "She's charmed by my line!"

"It's only Xiao—" Tinker yelped as Keiko suddenly passed her to Riki in a mid-air fling.

"I got you," Riki said it as if this was supposed to be comforting. "Keiko!"

The tengu female was heading for the airship. "I was called! He's here! He called!"

"Keiko!" Riki shouted, chasing after the teenager. "Wait! Damn it, Tinker, who is on that dreadnaught?"

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"Your uncle Jin."

"That's not possi—" Riki gasped as they swept back in through the shattered windshield and he saw Jin.

"Uncle Jin?"

Jin reached out and pulled Tinker out of Riki's hold. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Tinker fought the need to cling to Riki, or Jin.
I'm safe inside. I'm safe inside
.

"What the hell is going on? Where did you come from?" Riki gazed in stunned amazement at the tengu, elves, and humans.

"We got her. She's safe." Durrack had found the speaker tubes to the gun turret and engine rooms.

Cloudwalker and Keiko were holding the door that boomed with the oni's attempts to break it down.

"Tinker, your cousin says that Malice has Windwolf pinned down in Oakland. If you don't want to be a widow, we better get going."

It took Tinker a second to realize that Durrack had received the last part via his earbud radio and not the speakertube.

"What?" Riki cried. "You're taking on Malice? Are you nuts?"

"I've got a plan." Tinker wondered if that sounded remotely reassuring. She couldn't stop trembling.

Yeah, yeah, I'm fine
. "Do we have the guns?" she asked.