Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

"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."

"Try and keep us in this orbit," Tinker said. "A mei is only a thousand miles, give or take a couple hundred miles. If we drop much closer to the equator, we'll be out of range."

Tinker then retreated to work on printing out the spell. Jin tracked her down a short time later.

"Gracie wanted to be sure you got something to eat." Jin held out a container.

"Pft." Tinker waved away the offering. "If I eat, I'll have to figure out how you go to the bathroom up here, and I figure that's not going to be a pleasant activity."

Jin laughed, still holding out the cup-sized container. "You have to eat."

"What is it?"

"Cream of tomato soup."

"Oh! My favorite." She took the container and found that it was warm. As she snapped it open and sipped the rich creamy broth, Jin swung up to perch across from her.

"It was your father's favorite too." Jin sipped his own soup. "I can see Leo in you. Hear him in the way you talk. It makes me happy."

"Why?"

"Leo was my best friend for many years. I'm glad that in a way, he is living on through you."

"If he was such a good friend, why did you kill him?"

She expected him to deny it, but he only gazed at her, sorrow filling his eyes.

"I -I made a mistake. We never told Leo that we were tengu. And he never told us - at least, not until it was too late - that he was elfin. We kept our secrets from one another, and in the end, it killed Leo."

"I don't understand," Tinker said.

"Leo and I met at M.I.T. We both had radical ideas, ones that made us unpopular. We believed that magic existed-that there were other realms that could be visited via magical portals. Of course, we had the proof in our very blood, but that we never told anyone, even each other." Jin sighed, shaking his head. "It seems so obvious now. Dufae. How did we miss it?"

"What really happened? My grandfather never told me details."

"When Leo showed us his gate design, a possibility opened up to us. A paradise for the tengu. It became the flock dream, a bright promise at the end of a path through dark woods full of unseen danger. To be able to chose one's mate out of love, and not a carefully ordered breeding plan. To be able to fly. To walk under the sun in our true form, and not to be always hidden. I went to the kitsune, who are powerful in the Chinese government and talked to them about funding. They involved other parties. It was dangerous, I know, but I thought I understood all the factors. What I didn't know was Leo was an elf - that he knew exactly what the oni were - and that he wouldn't cooperate with them."

"Halfway through the meeting with the investors, Leo just freaked. He told them that he would never help the oni build a gate. And worse, he told them why. As much as the elves feared the oni, the oni of Earth feared the elves. He stormed out the meeting. I went after him. We were arguing -" Jin fell silent for a minute. "It happened so fast. One moment he was standing beside me on the street corner, arguing with me and the next he was dead in the middle of the road. I didn't even see what happened."

Jin sighed. "I wasn't driving the car. I didn't push him out into its path. But I brought death to him. And I can only say I'm sorry. And I am truly am. I loved him like a brother."