I sighed. “Can you see them from the street?”
“No. Focus. I’m telling you your boyfriend beheaded your enemies and threaded their skulls on sticks, and all you care about is if your neighbors can see them.”
“Is he okay?”
“Physically, yes. Mentally… Don’t get me wrong, the heads are an effective tactic. But still - disturbed. If you happen to catch his eyes in the right moment, something stares back at you.”
“It’s a wolf,” I told her.
“What?”
“It’s a wolf in the dark woods.”
Maud sighed. “You see the wolf. I see cities burning. There is something not quite right about him. Something unsettling. I’ve been through hell before. I know that look, Dina. It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I like him.”
Maud rolled her eyes.
“Did the Lord Marshal deliver?”
“Deliver what?” she asked.
“You know what. He promised you a sword. I think his exact words were, ‘A new blade before nightfall.’”
She clamped her mouth shut and drew a blood sword from her scabbard.
“Is it a good sword?”
“It’s exquisite.” She sounded like she just tasted a lemon. “He had it sent down from his ship. He made a huge scene out of it. A courier in full armor with crimson banners arrived and knelt in front of me to present it.”
I wished I could’ve seen the look on her face.
“I tried to refuse it.”
Arland could be extremely persistent when it was in his best interests. “How did that go?”
“He made it clear it was a gift from his House. If I didn’t take it, I would’ve offended the entire House Krahr. I couldn’t put us in that position. I looked up your rank while you were gone. You are at two and a half stars.”
“The inn was dormant for a long time.”
Maud waved her hand. “What I mean is, House Krahr publicly endorsed Gertrude Hunt. It would be both dangerous and ungrateful to offend them.”
She took it. Of course, she did.
“I made it clear that I will repay this gift at the first opportunity. I don’t like him,” Maud said. “He is stubborn, bullheaded, and insists on doing things his way.”
“You do realize all of those are synonyms?”
“I don’t like him, Dina. I have a responsibility to my child. I won’t risk reentering a society that threw her away like trash. We’re done with vampires. Come on. We have work to do.”
I took a deep breath. The void field snapped into place. I held my hand out. A broom rose from the ground and I fastened my fingers around it, feeling the worn, warm wood. I was home. It was time to soothe wild wolves and examine corrupted corpses.
* * *
The wolf waited for me on the second-floor balcony, in the spot I had come out to meet him in the middle of the night. It seemed like so long ago, but it was only a few days. I stepped out on to the balcony, Beast weaving around my feet.
Sean leaned against the wall on the left side of the doorway. He saw me. His eyes flashed amber, catching the light. He didn’t say anything. Apparently, it was up to me to start the conversation. That was only fair. My errand almost got him killed, and without him I would’ve died on that Baha-char street.
I heard you killed some people and put their heads on sharpened sticks. I wanted to check to see if you are feeling okay… It was probably best to start with something simple.
“Hi.”
“When you are in the inn, I trust you with my life,” he said. “When you are outside, you have to trust me with yours.”
“I do.”
“That means when I say run, you run. You don’t argue. You don’t cry. You do as I tell you, or we both die.”
Oh. It was that type of conversation. I crossed my arms.
He faced me. “I trust you to do your job. You have to trust me to do mine.”
“I trust you. I don’t trust your priorities.”
I wanted to reach over and pull that stone-hard expression off his face.
“My priority is making sure you survive.”
“Exactly. My priority is keeping my guests safe. They’re not always one and the same.”
“The Hiru was safe at the inn,” Sean said. “Your insistence on bringing the tank in because you wanted to impress him—”
“It wasn’t about impressing anyone. It was about trust. I promised to retrieve the tank. I had to come back with it.”
“— endangered you, me, Cookie, and Wilmos. Instead of concentrating on retrieving the tank from Wilmos’ shop, I had to carry you.”
“I’m sorry for inflicting this horrible burden on you.” I regretted it the moment the words left my mouth.
“It also endangered everyone in the inn. If you had died, Maud wouldn’t be able to hold off the Draziri. The Hiru would die.”
“My sister would’ve done just fine.”
Beast barked by my feet, unsure, but feeling the pressure to provide canine support. Sean ignored her.
“I have skills and abilities you don’t. More, I have experience.”
“So do I.”
“I’ve watched you kill,” he said. “You kill only when you have to. Of all the responses to a threat you face, killing someone is the last choice for you. For me, it’s not a choice. It’s instinct. I don’t think about it. I see a threat and I neutralize it. Of the two of us, I’m better equipped to handle an attack outside of the inn.”
“This doesn’t make you sound any more trustworthy.”
“It kept me alive. And, if you let me, I’ll keep you alive. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you survive.”
“Believe it or not, I somehow managed to survive for all these years without your help.”
“Either you trust me or you don’t. Decide, Dina. Because if you don’t, there is no point in me being here. I can’t do my job if you dig your heels in when I need you to follow my lead. I’m packed. Let me know what you decide.”
He jumped off the balcony.
Great.
“Idiot werewolf.”
Beast whined.
“Hush,” I told her and stomped back downstairs. He had a point. One of us ran the inn and the other killed hundreds of sentient beings. Of the two of us, he was a much better killer and a much better bodyguard. He’d made the call and I should’ve trusted it. I implied that I would follow his lead when I hired him for a dollar. Instead I did what I had to do to ensure that Sunset didn’t lose confidence in my ability to deliver. Was it truly necessary or did I do it out of pride? I didn’t want to think about it.
That whole conversation didn’t go the way I was hoping it would have.
A delicious smell permeated the downstairs, floating on the breeze. It smelled like… chicken.
Oh no.
I marched into the kitchen.
“Orro!” My voice cut the air like a knife.
He raised his head from a pot and turned toward me.
“Are you cooking Draziri?”
The needles stood up on his back.
“Don’t lie to me. I thought I made it perfectly clear. I won’t tolerate any…”
Orro jerked the oven open and yanked out a large roasting pan. On it, roasted to a golden-brown perfection, sat a medium-sized bird.
“Roasted Duck,” Orro said. “With buckwheat porridge and apple stuffing.”
Crap.
He drew himself to his full height, somehow taking up most of the kitchen, looming like some demon hedgehog of legend.
“In all my years, since I was a lowly apprentice barely tall enough to slide a pot onto a stove, I have broken the kitchen code only once. Once I have let a dish I hadn’t tasted leave my kitchen. I have never broken it before or since. The code is my life, my religion, and my conscience. Without it,” he ripped the air with his claws, “I am but a lowly savage.”
There was no stopping it. I brought it on myself, I had to stand there and take it.
r /> “Rise early to be at your station early,” Orro intoned. “Keep your knives sharp. Never touch other chef’s knives. Keep yourself, your station, and your food clean. Never let a dish out of your kitchen without tasting it. Know your ingredients. Respect the creatures on your prep table; honor their lives. Know your diners. Cook to the tastes of those who dine, not your own. Never serve a dish that harms your diners’ health or soul. Never settle for second best. Never stop learning. These are the cornerstones of everything I am. They are the firmament of my universe.”
He paused over me.
I nodded.
“Am I some vagrant you found on the street cooking rats in a rusted pot?”
Oh for the love of…
“Do you honestly think I would sink so low as to harm your soul by serving you a sentient being? Do you think so little of me?”
“I apologize.”
He slapped his clawed hand over his eyes in a pose that would’ve made any Shakespearean actor proud. “Go. Just… go.”
I fled the kitchen before he decided to continue with the speech.
So far I fought with Sean and Orro. The way today was going, if I lingered long enough, I would probably mortally offend Caldenia. Clearly there was only one place where I could safely be right now. I opened the floor and took the stairs down to the lab.
The corpse of the corrupted creature lay on the lab table. When Maud said “encased in a plastic container,” I took it to mean they put it in some plastic tub. They didn’t. A block of clear plastic greeted me, ten feet long and four feet wide. The corpse lay inside it, like some demented version of Snow White sleeping in a glass coffin.
How… Oh. Maud must’ve stuffed the corpse into an anchor tube, a clear cylinder of inert PVDF plastic. I had a whole section devoted to them in storage. They came in all sizes and were usually used to quarantine odd objects, provide microhabitats for small aquatic guests, and generally contain things when low thermal conductivity and high chemical corrosion resistance were a must. PVDF didn’t conduct electricity, was impervious to most acids, and resisted radiation. The argon chamber I used for the Archivarian was made of PVDF.
Maud must’ve found my storage set, or Gertrude Hunt had dug up a large container in response to stress. But securing the corpse in said container didn’t prove to be enough. The inn had somehow managed to encase the anchor tube in plastic.
I reached out and touched it. The inn creaked in alarm. No, not plastic. Clear resin. The inn had secreted resin and sealed the anchor tube in it until eight inches of its own sap shielded it from the corpse.
I would have to drill to get a sample and Gertrude Hunt would fight me every step of the way. I could feel it.
“We have to get a sample,” I said.
The walls of my little lab wavered as if invisible snakes slid just under their surface.
“We have to do it,” I said.
The walls shook.
“I know you’re scared. I understand. But you have to be brave.” I patted the wall. “It’s dangerous. We must know what it is before it hurts us or other innkeepers and other inns. I’ll be with you every step. I won’t let it hurt you. I blocked it once when I was off the inn’s grounds. I’ll block it again. Together we are stronger.”
The inn didn’t answer. I sat quietly and gently stroked the wood. It moved under my fingers like a cat arching her back. I could have forced Gertrude Hunt to respond. The inn obeyed the innkeeper. Eventually there would come a time when I would have to impose my will on it. Every innkeeper faced that challenge sooner or later. But forcing the inn’s compliance was a matter of last resort, used only to preserve life when no other way presented itself. I had witnessed my parents do it only twice, and it came at a great cost to them and to our inn.
“I know I’m asking a lot. But we must learn whatever we can so we’ll be ready. If there are more of them, if they come calling, we can’t be blind.”
Silence.
The corpse of the monstrous creature lay waiting. Even in death there was something sinister about it, almost as if a dark shadow shrouded it, permeating the body and clothes. A ghost born of the cold emptiness between the stars. It lay still but aware. It might have been my imagination, but I felt like it was watching me.
I was inside my inn, where nothing could hurt me unless I allowed it, and still this thing gave me the creeps. I didn’t want to open its transparent prison.
But if I didn’t and it attacked again, the responsibility for the lives that might be lost would land on my shoulders. I was an innkeeper. I had a duty.
“We can do it. Together.”
Silence.
I waited.
The lab’s floor parted. A small plastic container rose from the floor.
“Thank you.”
I raised my broom and channeled my magic into it. It split, the shaft fragmenting to expose the electric blue core of pure magic. I held it above the resin.
“Ready?”
A root slipped out of the ground, curving to hover above my broom. A viscous drop of resin formed on its tip, swelling to the size of a large grapefruit.
I set the broom on the hardened block of resin and pushed. The blue core sank into the sap, burning its way down. I let it work. There was no hurry. Coils of fragrant smoke curled from the drill site.
Quarter of the way in.
Half.
Three-quarters.
We only needed a trace of its body, just enough to run the basic analysis and scans.
Almost there.
The broom sank through the resin and met the hard resistance of the plastic. I pushed gently.
The plastic shell melted.
The black shadow I’d sensed surged up, toward the broom, covering the few inches of space between the body and the upper wall of the plastic in a blink. Foul magic clamped my broom and spiraled up. Fetid, cold, and terrifying power streamed through the broom, trying to get out.
I grasped my broom with both hands and fought back, sending my magic through it.
The shadow curved, winding around the glowing tip of the broom. It had no face, it had no substance, but there it was, right there, fighting me. It wanted out. I felt its furious hunger. It wanted to devour me and Gertrude Hunt and everything within.
I poured my power into the broom. No. Not happening.
The shadow held on for a torturous moment… and broke. I stabbed the broom into the body. A mental shriek cut across my mind like metal screeching against metal. I pierced the shadow again. It screeched and wailed, lashing in my mind.
Not in my inn. Not while I’m watching.
I stabbed and stabbed, until finally it sank deep into the body and hid there.
I dimmed the broom and slid it into the body, sliced off a small sample of the flesh, and pulled it free, depositing the sample into the plastic container and snapping the lid shut. The moment the broom came free, the inn dripped resin into the opening, sealing the shadow inside. Green and red lights flashed as the inn scanned the sample.
I waited, watching the corpse, waiting for any sign of the shadow returning.
A chime announced the DNA scan completing. Too fast. Sequencing an alien creature should’ve taken much longer. I turned to the screen to see the results.
Ice shot through me, from the top of my head all the way to my toes.
“We’re going to need another anchor tube.”
Ten minutes later Maud walked into the lab. “Here you are.”
She dropped into the chair, crossing her long legs. “Helen said she heard a weird scream, so I searched the grounds, and found nothing.”
“What did it sound like?”
“She said it sounded like a night shrieker. It’s an ugly bird. Well, more reptile than bird really. Sounds like nails on a chalkboard.”
Or metal on metal.
She nodded toward the corpse encased in plastic, sealed in resin, then encased in a larger plastic tube and sealed again. The inn was still pouring sap on it.
“D
on’t you think you’re going overboard?”
I punctured the lid of the sample container and poured viscous purple liquid into it.
“Is that carnyte?”
“Yes.”
I waved my hand. The wall in front of me flowed open, revealing a desolate landscape. I tossed the sample jar into it. The inn’s wall reformed, turning transparent. The jar fell and burst into smokeless crimson fire. Carnyte was one of the worst things ever invented in the galaxy. It burned through just about everything, ripping molecules apart.
“Okay,” Maud said, stretching the word out. “Mind sharing?”
The crimson fire was still burning.
“I sequenced the DNA.”
“That was fast.”
“There was a match in the database.”
Maud stared at me. “Are you telling me that thing is… was human?”
I pointed to the corpse. “It’s Michael.”
She frowned. “Michael…?”
“Michael Braswell.”
She drew in a sharp breath.
I waved at the screen. A picture of an innkeeper filled it, a man in his thirties, honest face, light brown hair, blue eyes.
We turned to look at the crimson fire at the same time. It was easier to watch it burn than to face that I had killed the abomination who used to be my brother’s best friend.
CHAPTER 9
“How is this possible?” Maud paced by the body.
“I don’t know.”
It was too disturbing. I didn’t want to think about it. I would have to, but I didn’t want to. When I was twelve years old, I decided to attend middle school. I lasted one week. I desperately wanted to be accepted, but instead of making friends, I ended up being the odd kid. Middle school fights were vicious. Everyone there was a ball of insecurity and hormones, which I realized much later, and they were ready to pounce on any target that stood out from the pack. My family loved me so much. I was a sheltered kid. I couldn’t even imagine that anyone could be so mean.
When I called to the house on the last Friday of my glorious middle school experience, crying and picking mashed potatoes out of my hair, my parents were out. Klaus was minding the inn and couldn’t leave. It was Michael who came to pick me up in his massive pickup truck. He’d been planning to visit Klaus for the weekend, but instead he drove with me three hours to his parents’ inn where I got to take a shower, have dinner with his family, and pretend that the Friday never happened, because I couldn’t face my family yet. It was Michael who brought me back home the next morning and told me it would be okay.