Wood Sprites(192)
Louise breathed out in mixed relief. They’d tapped spy satellites on the train, pinpointed the safe house and examined it remotely by every means they could think of. Crow Boy had insisted on going and checking it alone. The twins agreed because the only thing they couldn’t discount were the children being dead inside.
He collapsed into one of the chairs. “I feel so useless.”
“We’ll find them.” She opened the bags. “Indian?” There had been a Chinese place just on the corner.
“I don’t know who I can trust.” He laid his head on the table. “Not everyone who is Chinese is an oni, but the human-looking oni are all traveling with Chinese visas. The oni need to have people close to both sides of the quarantine zones to get their people in and out unseen. The EIA have weeded out the moles in their agency, but there are plenty of others on Earth. We need to be careful not be seen.”
She nodded, her stomach flipping at the thought of being captured again. Yves had been careless once, mostly because Feng had been there, distracting him. Yves wouldn’t underestimate the twins again. This time he’d know all about the babies and Joy.
Her hands trembled slightly as she opened up the containers of palak peneer, vegetable korma, chicken tikka masala, samosa, and naan bread.
Crow Boy reached out and took her hand; his was large and callous compared to hers. “You only need to find them. I’ll deal with the guard.” For a moment he seemed like an adult man, and then the moment was gone, and he was an exhausted, battered fourteen-year-old boy with the world on his shoulders.
“I told you: no charging in.” She smacked him on top of his head. “We’re smarter than Yves. He’ll never see us coming.”
Crow Boy’s shoulder shook with silent laughter.
“Promise!” Louise smacked him again.
“I will do anything you ask of me, but I won’t let you put yourself in danger. If it comes to a fight, you must let me do what I’ve been trained to do. Alone.”
At the mansion, he had taken on half a dozen adults by himself. He taken out two and held his own for several minutes against four. Those he was fighting had been worried enough to call for help.
“Are you like some kind of super ninja warrior?” Louise asked.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
His shoulders shook again with silent laughter. “It is a long story of love and honor and loyalty, but the simple answer is yes.”
“Oh, come on!” Louise cried. “I know you’re tired but we need to know everything we can about what’s going on. If we’d known what was going on right after our first visit to the museum, we could have stopped—stopped everything. As it was, we didn’t even get a message to our sister warning her or Windwolf.”
He laughed tiredly. “Geez, where do I even start?” He sighed out and was silent for a little while. “My people were human once. We lived in what is now China during the Warring States, over two thousand years ago. The first Wong Jin had been a wise sage that had fallen out of favor with the Flame Emperor. He and his seven loyal and brave servants became bandits, kind of like Robin Hood and his merry men, if Robin Hood had a secret cave hideout that led to another world. Over time, they gathered hundreds of poor people to them in a remote mountain village on Onihida. Then one day—” He laughed. “You have to understand, we love to tell stories about Wong Jin. It gives us hope that someday—if we’re clever—we’ll outsmart our enemies and find freedom.”
“One day…” Louise prompted him.
“One day Wong Jin and his men were out being on one of their many adventures which mostly involved stealing something and then escaping in a clever way, and they discovered Elfhome. And there, basically on the doorstep to that world, was Providence. Most men would have been frightened—and certainly Wong Jin’s men wanted to flee the dragon—but Wong Jin saw that Providence was an intelligent creature, and so engaged him in conversation.”
“The dragons had put Elfhome under edict. By the laws of his people, Providence could not travel to Elfhome but he’d lost his daughter on the world. Fearing the worse, he pleaded with Wong Jin to find his child and bring her to him. He promised to reward Wong Jin richly if he succeeded. Wong Jin accepted the challenge. Providence marked Wong Jin so his daughter would know that Wong Jin was his Chosen. To make a long, long story short, Wong Jin carefully made his way through the elves’ defenses to find where Providence’s child had been entrapped. Only he arrived too late. The elves had already shattered the child to a dozen pieces.”