Wood Sprites (30 page)

The news was full of the attack on Windwolf and his disappearance. Lacking concrete details, the media filled in with speculation. What was known as fact was that the viceroy and his bodyguards had been traveling in two separate Rolls-Royces from the south edge of the Rim. At some point the two vehicles had been separated. Near dawn, Windwolf’s car was found in an area called Fairywood, along with the body of his driver. To Louise’s guilty relief, the
sekasha
that had been killed was Hawk Scream; the warrior’s neck had been broken by a large animal. Since the police were involved in the shoot-out on Veterans Bridge, the search for Windwolf had been left to the EIA.

Knowing that the very people that attacked Windwolf also controlled the EIA, Louise was afraid that he might be dead. The only thing that gave her hope was an odd dream she had about him surviving the night without magic to protect him.

Certainly the media had decided that the viceroy was dead; they debated who would replace Windwolf and what his death would mean to Pittsburgh. Would the elves declare war on the humans? Should the UN pull in extra troops just in case to protect the human population? Or would the elves consider that a sign of aggression? Analysts pointed out that this wasn’t the first time that a
sekasha
had been killed by an animal while guarding Windwolf. Five years earlier, humans had a caged saurus on display at the fairgrounds. When the massive lizard broke free, it had wounded the viceroy and mauled one of his bodyguards before Windwolf killed it with a flame strike. The elves hadn’t threatened war at the time; they had simply deported the humans responsible.

Other sources, though, pointed out that Windwolf had been the one who meted out the punishment on the criminally negligent. Sparrow’s sense of justice was unknown. Analysts were optimistic. Louise was not.

It was surreal to stand on the train platform, hear the endless speculation, and
know
what the rest of the world didn’t. Surely this is what a sighted person would feel like in a country of blind people.

Sparrow would take command of the Westernlands until Queen Soulful Ember could choose a new viceroy. Between the moles in the EIA and her leadership of the Elves, Pittsburgh had fallen into the hands of the very people who had attacked Windwolf. There had been a reason that Sparrow wanted Windwolf dead. It may have been solely for the ability to start a war. By secretly controlling both sides, Sparrow could easily manipulate conflicts until humans and elves were at each other’s throats.

* * *

Zahara ambushed them at the top of the stairs to the fifth-grade floor. “Did you see the news?”

“About Windwolf?” Louise felt guilty. Guilty that she hadn’t been able to warn anyone on Elfhome. Guilty that she hadn’t told any of her friends. Guilty that they needed to go on acting like they knew nothing about forces of evil trying to destroy the peace that existed between humans and elves.

“No. Not that. That sucks. I mean about Nigel Reid.”

“What happened to Nigel?” Louise cried. The last twenty-four hours had been nothing but bad news.

“He’s going to Elfhome!” Zahara obviously thought this was good news. “NBC announced it this morning! He’s going to be doing a show called
Chased by Monsters
, and they’re going to start filming next Shutdown.”

“Last I heard, he was filming the pilot here on Earth.” The twins had verified Aunt Kitty’s news while arranging to give Nigel the gossamer call at the gala.

“What? No. The network pulled serious strings yesterday and pushed the visas through.”

“Why?” Louise cried. “This is the worse time possible for him to go!”

“Taggart,” Jillian muttered darkly.

“Huh?” Zahara was lost in the conversation.

“Taggart is a famous war correspondent,” Jillian explained. “He left CNN to team up with Nigel to do nature documentaries. NBC must be counting on war breaking out and want someone there that can cover it for them.”

“Why would a war break out?” Zahara asked.

The bell for homeroom saved Louise from having to answer.

* * *

With the addition of Iggy and three of his biggest pirate classmates, they were trooped downstairs to the auditorium for an entire day of flying. They were going to choreograph the fight scene on the
Jolly Roger
. The main focus of the battle was Hook and Peter’s duel, but the three Darling children would flit about on the edges, having their own moments as they took on and conquered a pirate. Louise had written big sweeping fight music for the battle, but it needed logical pauses in the score for Jillian and the others to deliver their lines.

Louise took her place at the control board and opened up a browser to the Internet. As Zahara claimed, NBC stated that Nigel would be sent to Elfhome next Shutdown to film
Chased by Monsters
. Horrible, horrible title for such a noble, gentle, and intelligent man. What was he thinking? She checked Nigel’s website. He had the same information that he’d featured a week ago. It was possible that the sudden change had flooded him with things that needed to be done since he had only twenty-some days to prepare for filming on another planet and get to the Pittsburgh border. The NBC press release said nothing about Windwolf or Taggart or EIA or visa problems. Zahara’s statement about the network pulling strings sounded right, but where would she get that idea, since she clearly wasn’t thinking about political ramifications?

Louise checked Jello Shots. The website was in furious debate. The source of Zahara’s comment was obvious as the fans weighed in on how NBC had rammed Nigel through the EIA’s visa bottleneck. What would their beloved Lemon-Lime do about Windwolf’s death? Would Lemon-Lime ignore it and continue on with Prince Yardstick or herald in Sparrow as the new viceroy of the Westernlands?

The question made Louise want to rage. She would never acknowledge Sparrow’s character, Jerked, as viceroy, even if the real person claimed the title. Prince Yardstick would survive the attack in their videos.

A new thread popped up: Did Lemon-Lime put Nigel in the last video knowing that Taggart would be needed on Elfhome?

Louise stared at the heading in dismay and anger. They had made the video before they had overheard Sparrow plotting. And certainly, they had never expected to be able to influence anyone to the point of getting Nigel a visa to Elfhome. If they’d known all that was coming and the extent of their fame . . .

They did know what was going on. They knew Sparrow and others were kidnapping scientists to build a secret gate between worlds. They knew that the scientists were balking when they discovered that their work would plunge Elfhome into war. They knew that Sparrow and Ambassador Feng had been behind the plot to kill Windwolf. They knew that there were moles in the EIA, using that agency to keep out anyone who might investigate their activities.

They knew. And as Lemon-Lime, they could do something about it.

Louise took a deep, cleansing breath. Right. Lemon-Lime was going on the warpath. It was a good thing that she needed to write fight music already.

* * *

“You did what?” Jillian cried as they detoured to the grocery store after school. It was odd walking through the store knowing that they could afford to buy anything they wanted.

“I had a dream last night that Windwolf survived the attack. Peter Pan and Tinker Bell—the fairy, not our sister—saved him while riding hoverbikes, so I turned it into a video. I called it
The Queen’s Salvage
.”

“What—what—what?”

“I think Orville was supposed to be Peter Pan in my dream because Tinker Bell looked like Alexander.” She picked up a bag of cheddar-flavored goldfish crackers. Their mother usually insisted on healthy snacks like carrots and grapes.

“This is all kinds of wrong. First off, we don’t know if Windwolf survived.”

“No one will know until next Shutdown, but everyone is acting like he was killed. If we don’t remind people that he might be alive, the UN is going to steamroll through several votes, including the quarantine zone expansion, which they were putting on hold. Oh! Chocolate-covered strawberries.”

“Okay
.
”
Jillian looked at her as if she’d grown a second head.

Louise shook the strawberries at Jillian. “The person most vocal about pushing through the votes? Ambassador Feng. They’re using this attack to leverage what they want. And we’ve got to stop them.”

“Us?”

“We’re the only ones that seem to know the truth.” Louise added the strawberries to her basket.

“What if they get mad and start to look for us?”

“Jello Shots have been trying to figure out who we are for the last two years. We apparently are like world-class ninjas because a hundred thousand geeks haven’t been able to find a clue.”

“I don’t know if that’s scary or sad.”

“I think it’s both.” Louise picked up premium beef jerky that their mother would never, never buy because of how horribly expensive it was.

“Yeah, both.” Jillian eyed the basket. “Why are you buying so much junk? You know we’ll have to hide it all.”

“Because we can,” Louise said. “Besides, I want something in case we get hungry. We’ve got lots of work to do. Thank God we’re nearly done with saving the babies.”

“So this video is of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell saving Windwolf?”

Louise laughed. “No, I just riffed on my dream. Two Pittsburghers save him. I don’t even name them. The guy is dressed up as an African explorer. The girl looks like Tinker Bell with the blond hair and the breasts, but she has a flamethrower. They kill this saurus chasing Windwolf and take him to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.”

“That is so weird. Why?”

“I had a dream about Nigel in Pittsburgh. I just smashed the two dreams together to protect Alexander.”

“Okay, that works.” They stopped in the kitchen equipment aisle and considered the tools. They needed heavy gloves, tongs, and something to stand in for the rack holding the vials of frozen embryos so they could practice stealing them out of the liquid nitrogen vaults. “Did you check on the snake?”

“Yes, we can pick it up tomorrow afternoon. All we need to do is make sure ice doesn’t melt in the
nactka
and we’re ready to roll.”

* * *

They’d been so upset the night of the robbery that they’d just brought the
nactka
home inside the gift-shop box and hidden it away in the back of their closet. There it had stayed, untouched.

They set up for the experiment on their desk, arranging the magic generator, oven mitts, scissors, a thermometer, and a glass of normal ice. They’d toyed with stealing a cup of liquid nitrogen out of the chemistry lab at school, but the long commute on the crowded train made it unsafe and impractical.

Her first impression of the
nactka
, as Louise lifted it out of its box, remained of a delicately etched monster-size egg. According to the codex, much like Dufae’s box, it required magic to open and close, but once sealed, it would hold whatever was inside in stasis without magic. Louise suspected—if she had translated the Elvish and understood quantum physics as well as she thought—that the device acted like a miniature gate, teleporting whatever was inside from the moment the
nactka
was sealed to the moment that it was unsealed.

They set the
nactka
carefully on the magic generator. While Jillian filmed the experiments, Louise took an outside reading of it with the thermometer and made note that it was the same temperature as the room.

“We need to test the ice before it melts.” Jillian pointed her new camera at the glass filled with ice.

“I’m hurrying.” Louise spoke the keyword to unseal the
nactka
.

The dome of the device cracked at the lines and unfolded like a flower, as if the cream-colored shell was on hinges. They both yelped in surprise as a creature popped up out of the trap and hissed angrily. Before Louise could get a clear look at it, the creature sprang to the edge of the desk, then to her footboard, and then bounced off the glass of the window.

“What is it?” Jillian backed way, trying to film the animal as it bounced around the room like a rubber ball.

“Umm.” Louise got the impression of a small snaky body and a mouth full of teeth. No snake she’d ever seen moved with leaps and bounds. It landed back on the desk beside the
nactka
and shoved it aside to stand on the magic generator. “I don’t know.” Louise tore open the bag of goldfish crackers and put one of the bright orange fish on the edge of the desk. She softly snapped her fingers; might as well start training it now. “Cracker?”

She sat on her bed, giving the creature an opportunity to investigate the food.

“I don’t think snakes eat crackers.” Jillian worked the zoom controls on her camera.

The creature sniffed loudly and then darted forward to snatch up the goldfish. It opened wide and shoved the cracker into its surprisingly large mouth.

“I don’t think it’s a snake.” Louise slid another goldfish onto the edge of the desk after the creature retreated back to the generator. She snapped her fingers together softly. “Cracker? Snakes don’t have legs.”