Read Tinker for Free Online Page B

to the OR's window."
    "Oh, we can't," Tinker said. "We'll drive over the flowers and ruin them."
    "A man's life is more important than flowers." Lain brushed the objection aside. "Will the spell let you disconnect and reconnect?"
    "I am not a man," Windwolf whispered.
    "Elf. Man. Close enough for horseshoes," Tinker said, shaking her head in answer to Lain's question. "I can print a second spell and activate it in the OR. We'll have to scrub his chest to get all traces of the old spell off."
    "Horseshoes?" Windwolf asked.
    "It's a game," Tinker told him. "Oilcan and I play it at the scrap yard. When you're better, I'll teach it to you."
    "Okay." Lain limped to the door. "Let's make this happen."
    Tinker printed off another copy of the spell and found longer leads. Oilcan found help at the Observatory in the form of astronomers. They took down much of the picket fence and eased the truck to the porch. Luckily Lain had a hospital gurney in her lab, and they wheeled it over a ramp into the trailer. After Oilcan and two of the postdocs slid Windwolf onto the gurney, they wheeled it as far as the present leads allowed, which took them inside the foyer of Lain's grand Victorian home.
    There they let him sit, while Tink threaded the longer leads out the lab window. Then came the mad scramble of disconnecting leads, pushing Windwolf to the lab, moving the truck, cleaning Windwolf's chest, applying the spell, and reconnecting the leads. Windwolf lay still as death on the gurney even after Tink activated the spell.
    "Is he dead?" Tinker had been entertaining herself with thoughts of Windwolf's aristocratic reaction to flinging large metal horseshoes at a metal peg. Would he even come see how the game would be played, she had wondered, or would he vanish out of her life like he had done last time? The thought of him dead and unable to do either sickened her. Oh please, no.  
    And then after that, an even more horrible thought. Oh, no, the life debt! She patted her shirt pocket, and the cancel spell crinkled reassuringly. There was even magic left in the sink to power the spell.
    Lain pulled on latex gloves and then pressed a hand to his neck. "No. He's hanging in there. Barely."
    Tinker sniffed as blinked-away tears made her nose start to run.
    Lain looked at her strangely.
    "If he dies," Tinker offered as an excuse for the sniffling, "I'm screwed."
    Lain frowned at her, then swung the brilliant light over to shine on the elf's face. "Wolf Who Rules Wind." She used his full true name in Elvish, seemingly stunned to immobility.
    "You know him? Lain?"
    Lain looked at her. "When are you going to start taking notice of things beyond that scrap yard of yours? There are two very large worlds out there, and you are in an uncommon position of being part of both of them. Speaking of which, Oilcan, can you see if the phones are working? I have several hours of data to upload while we're on Earth. These Foo dogs—they have fangs, like a cat?"
    "Yes."
    "These puncture wounds must have been made by the fangs. There is crushing damage from the teeth between them. I'm going to treat all this with peroxide, or they'll go septic."
    "They weren't genetic constructs—more like a solid hologram. When I hit them with the electromagnet, they unraveled back down to the original creature. Their breath smelled like—" Tinker searched her memory now that she didn't have one of the beasts breathing down her neck "—like incense."
    "Foo dogs are actually Foo lions—protectors of sacred buildings," Lain said. "Temples and suchlike. They're supposed to scare demons—oni."
    "I thought you said oni were elves, related to the tengu."
    "Elves, demons, spirits. Two cultures rarely have one-to-one translations. So, you're saying that these bites were made by holograms? You're guessing there's no bacteria involved because they weren't eating, breathing, real creatures?"
    "Solid illusions, possibly. Oh, who the hell knows?"
    "I'd rather be safe than sorry. We have