Clean Sweep

Chapter Eleven

"Naked?" Arland raised the wet kitchen towel off his face long enough to give Sean a mortified glance.

"Don't sweat it," Sean said. "Could've happened to anyone."

His tone sounded casual, but Sean was watching Arland the way one would watch a slithering snake: calm, but ready to stomp on it if it chose to move his way.

Arland groaned and put the towel back on his face. Somehow Sean had managed to talk him down and get him back into the kitchen and into his clothes, and moments later the caffeine withdrawal hit with a vengeance. Now the vampire sat in the kitchen, his back against the wall, an ice-cold towel on his face. Tylenol and Ibuprofen were out of the question. I had no idea how vampire metabolism would react to it, and his personal med unit was busy keeping his uncle alive.

A vampire had once described a caffeine headache as the worst pain she had endured, even counting childbirth. So far Arland was doing his best to be heroically stoic about it.

The coffee maker finished purring. I took the cup, added a teaspoon of sugar, crouched by Arland, and lifted the corner of the towel. He looked at me. "What is this?"

"Peppermint tea. It will help with the headache. No side effects, I promise."

He took the cup from my hands. "Thank you. While I was... drunk, did I happen to mention my cousin?"

"Several times," Sean said.

Arland groaned. "My apologies."

"It's not a big deal," I told him.

"Did I say anything else?"

"What, about a blood debt, killing the dahaka, and how your House honor was involved?" Sean asked. "Nope, didn't mention it."

Arland dragged his hand across his face.

"You don't have to be an ass about it," I said.

Sean shrugged. "How am I an ass? I live here. This is my neighborhood. I'm protecting it and I'm protecting you." His voice slid into a calm, methodical tone. "Let's review: first, this guy's uncle shows up, threatens you, ignores your warning, goes out to hunt dahaka, gets his people killed, and nearly dies. I rescue him, you keep him alive, and then Prince Rapunzel appears in a flash of red lightning, forces you to protect him, putting you and the entire neighborhood at risk, and explains nothing."

Those were the facts, yes.

Sean kept going. "The dahaka is here because of the vampires. They're obviously trying to capture it or kill it, and so far they've screwed this up royally in every way possible. The least your guest can do is to explain why. For all we know, the vampires could've triggered this entire situation. Maybe they bombed the dahaka's planet into the Stone Age or killed his sensei or whatever, and now he's looking for justified revenge while you're wiping sweat off Arland's brow and fetching him tea."

Arland stood up. It was an instant movement. One second he was sitting on the floor, and the next he was on his feet, shoulders squared, fangs bared. "So you gave me coffee to get me to talk."

Sean faced him. "No, I didn't. I gave you coffee because I thought you were a grown-up who could handle a grown-up drink."

"Did you know what effect it would have?"

"I didn't know vampires existed until your uncle showed up here, snarling and puffing out his chest."

"My uncle is a veteran of seven wars, father to two knights, and a man of honor," Arland squeezed through his teeth. "You're not fit to step on his shadow."

Sean crossed his arms. "I don't care who your uncle is or what he's done. So far I'm not impressed. The sooner your armored fun brigade gets off our planet and out of our hair, the better."

"Your planet. Funny, when I looked at it from space, I didn't see your name on it." Arland leaned forward. "Your planet is a trail of dead rocks in the empty blackness. You have no sense of home, House, or honor. You're an outcast."

"Enough," I said. If I didn't stop this now, in a minute they'd be rolling around my kitchen punching each other.

"I was born here." Sean pointed to the ground. "On this planet. This is my home. I don't know where you're from, but if you have trouble finding your way back, I can help you with that."

"You're trying to impress the girl," Arland said. "I understand, but you will fail. Don't trouble yourself—I will take care of my House's debt. Had I known that a mangy dog would get in my way, I would've made sure to mark higher on the apple trees."

Apparently Sean's creative urinating hadn't gone unnoticed. It didn't surprise me—vampires were a predatory species and all the senses that helped them track prey were highly developed.

Sean bared his teeth. The violence shivered in his eyes, ready to be unleashed.

"Enough!" I set the broom on the floor, sending a magic ripple through the inn. The house rocked.

The vampire and the werewolf shut up.

"I will not have fighting in my inn." I turned to Arland. "My lord, your room is down the hall. Withdraw."

He opened his mouth.

"Withdraw or I will revoke your welcome, sanctuary or not."

Arland turned and walked away stiffly, the cup of peppermint tea still in his hand.

I turned to Sean.

The werewolf shook his head. "You know what, I'm done. I'll show myself out."

He spun on his heel and strode out.

I shrugged my shoulders. Every innkeeper faced this, most sooner rather than later. When you play host to guests from across the universe, personalities clashed, and if you weren't careful, they would run rampant all over you. Being an innkeeper meant walking a fine line between courtesy and tyranny.

But Sean was right. Arland and his House had put all of us at risk and it wasn't clear why. The fact that they weren't forthcoming with information was hardly surprising, but it didn't make my life any easier. Most innkeepers in my position would've left his uncle to die on the street. We didn't get involved unless something directly threatened the inn itself.

Sean had even less obligation to get involved than I did. He had coped with shocking information well—even if it made him grumpy—but he kept trying to get a grip on the situation by taking charge, and it kept sliding through his fingers. I sympathized, but last time I checked I didn't answer to werewolves. Or to vampires.

Speaking of vampires... I opened my fridge. Vampires required a specific diet, rich in fresh meat but also rich in fresh herbs. Dried wouldn't work. I would need the real thing: fresh parsley, dill, basil, and especially mint. Mints—peppermint, spearmint, and other members of Mentha genus—had an almost miraculous effect on vampires. They boosted their immune system and shortened recovery from injuries, and Lord Soren would need some in his diet as soon as he recovered enough to eat.

Parsley and dill weren't a problem. I grew my own under the trees in the orchard. But basil and mint I would have to purchase. We were sadly out of Mello Yello, which kept Caldenia happy and content, and I had my hands full as it was without her getting snippy. Beast was nearing the bottom of her food bucket, and I could use a resupply on a few perishables, like coffee creamer. I took a jug of milk from the shelf, popped the top, and sniffed it. Ew. And milk.

It was almost ten. The sun shone bright. If I had to make an excursion to the store, now would be the perfect time. If Hollywood's best special-effects artists caught a glimpse of the dahaka and his stalkers, they would suffer a collective apoplexy from sheer envy. There was no way for him to travel out in broad daylight. It was now or never.

I took the car keys from the drawer and grabbed my purse. "I'm going to Costco. I'll be back soon. If Sean comes back, don't let him in. If the vampires try to leave, don't prevent them from going but do warn them that it's unsafe."

The house creaked in acknowledgment. I stepped out, made show of locking the front door in case Officer Marais skulked about, and headed to my car.

There was something almost serene about walking through Costco in the morning. The clean expanse of the floor just rolled on and on, interrupted only by twenty-foot-tall shelves and stacks of merchandise arranged in neat bright islands in the gray sea of concrete.

Maybe it was the feeling of plenty. Everything was supersized. Things came in huge boxes and volume was measured in pints, not ounces. It was a false but pleasant feeling of buying a lot at once and getting it at a good price. I could buy ten enormous jars of peanut butter and stuff it in the back of my car. My home was a battleground between a surly werewolf and an arrogant vampire, and a murderous alien was trying to kill us, but I would never run out of peanut butter again and I would get it for a steal, too.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I checked it. Sean. How had he even gotten my number?

I let it buzz. He didn't leave a voice mail. It wasn't urgent then.

I pushed my cart forward past the tables filled with stacks of clothes, toward the corner of the store where giant packs of paper towels and toilet paper waited. This early, the warehouse was practically empty. Here and there a mother pushed a cart with a toddler in tow. A retired couple debated which huge can of coffee to buy. A regular morning in an ordinary store, quiet. Just how I liked it. Nice and calm.

Unfortunately, walking through a nice and calm store pretty much by myself also tended to clear one's head. My head got itself cleared fast and I ran straight into a hard thought. One way or another, I had to get rid of the dahaka. I had zero ideas about how to do it.

No matter how I turned it around, Arland was my best bet. He had all the answers. However, the rules of hospitality dictated that I treat him as a guest. He'd asked for sanctuary, and I'd granted it. Our verbal contract was binding and could be broken only under very specific circumstances. The grant of sanctuary could be revoked if a guest had lied about the severity of his situation, if his presence inside the inn posed a risk to other guests beyond the innkeeper's ability to counteract, or if the guest willingly and knowingly aided in breaking the concealment provision.

Arland hadn't lied about the severity of his situation. His uncle was truly near death and both of them were in clear and immediate danger. The second clause was usually invoked when a guest was a violent maniac who attempted to attack other guests within the inn. Not only did Arland not fit that description, but invoking this clause almost always resulted in having your inn marked down. It was an admission of failure on the innkeeper's part. If an innkeeper knew she couldn't handle a violent guest, she shouldn't have let him in. Once she did, she had to contain the guest or she had no business running the inn in the first place. It was like holding a sign that said "Hi, over here, I'm incompetent." I reminded myself that Gertrude Hunt could not afford to lose a mark.

The last clause had to do with a guest who deliberately and knowingly compromised the secrecy surrounding the inns. Every planet and every world whose citizens sought refuge at the inns had sworn to conceal their existence and that of the innkeepers. Our planet at large wasn't ready for the big reveal of the universe. People had tried to test the waters—in October of 1938, for example—and the results weren't positive. However, Arland showed no inclination to approach random strangers on the street, declare that he was a vampire from a distant corner of the galaxy, and offer to let them touch his fangs. Back to square one.

I took some paper towels and stuffed them on the lower shelf of my cart. Maybe on my way out I'd treat myself to a slushy. Not that it would help me find my way out of this mess, but it would make me feel better.

I rounded the shelf. Sometime soon I'd need to make an excursion to a home-improvement store and buy some lumber, paint, and PVC. If the inn was going to expand, I'd need to help out by providing some raw materials. Gertrude Hunt had the advantage of age—the inn had really deep roots, but it had stood abandoned for so long. Even though the flurry of recent activity wasn't really straining it, I'd rather be safe than sorry...

A plump, dark-haired woman ahead of me stopped dead in her tracks and I almost ran my cart into her.

"Excuse me." I smiled.

She glanced at me, her eyes wide. "Did you see that?"

"I'm sorry, see what?"

"Over there." The woman pointed to the seven-foot-tall freezers.

I studied the units. Bright square packages of frozen pizza, bags of corn, peas, and Normandy mix. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"I guess I'm just going crazy." The woman frowned.

"What do you think you saw?"

A harsh, grating noise cut through the quiet. Something sharp was scratching across metal. I looked up. Above the freezer on the white wall sat a stalker, fastened to the drywall by its huge claws.

The woman gasped.

Son of a bitch. Out in broad daylight.

No broom. Security cameras. A carnivorous alien monster in a warehouse full of unsuspecting people. I took a split-second inventory of the shelves in front of me and my cart. Shelves: paper towels, paper plates, napkins. Cart: ten three-liter bottles of Mello Yello, big bag of dog food, plastic bags filled with bunches of mint and basil, cookies, twin jugs of Clorox, olive oil...

The stalker swiveled its head, its evil, vicious eyes measuring the distance between it and us.

"What the hell is that?" the woman whispered.

The stalker turned, twisting its body as if it were boneless.

"Run," I barked and grabbed the metal shelves, sending a precision pulse through the building. The magic zapped through the shelving and into the floor.

God, this place was huge. I pushed harder, the magic streaming from me, dashing through the wires under the floor and in the walls.

"What?" The woman gaped at me.

The stalker's muscles bunched.

"Run!"

The woman planted herself. "Like hell! This place is full of old people and kids."

The one time I get caught in the open and my bystander wants to stand her ground instead of running away.

The magic "clicked," wrapping around the right set of wires. The security cameras died.

The stalker leaped, claws poised for the kill. I yanked the gallon-sized jug of bleach from the cart and swung it like a bat. The jar connected with a solid thud, knocking the stalker aside. It flew, righted itself like a cat, and landed in the aisle, sliding back. Claws scraped the concrete.

The beast charged me. I swung the bleach again. The stalker dodged left. The dark-haired woman grabbed a six-pack of Del Monte canned corn from her cart and hurled it at the creature. The blow took it on the shoulder. The stalker stumbled and shied toward me. I smashed the bleach over its head. The stalker jerked back and raked the bottle with its claws—the plastic held.

A huge jar of tomato paste crashed into the beast's side. The stalker snapped at the woman, lashing with its claws. The tips of its talons cut across the woman's forearm, and she cried out. I grabbed a bottle of olive oil from her cart and brought it down like a hammer. The stalker leaped back. I threw the bottle at it.

The stalker made an eerie, whispery growl that raised every hair on my body. The woman swiped cans from her cart and threw them one after the other. The stalker retreated under the barrage of cans, baring ugly red teeth. Step, another step. The shelves loomed behind it.

The stalker leaped straight up, scuttled over the plastic-wrapped inventory on the shelves so fast it was a blur, and leaped straight at me. I had no time to react. The huge claws caught my arms, ripping through the fabric. Pain lanced my shoulders. The impact knocked me back and my spine hit the metal shelves. The red teeth snapped an inch from my face. Fetid, sour breath washed over me.

I twisted the cap off the bleach and dumped it over the ugly face.

The stalker's scream was like nails on a chalkboard.

The woman took a running start and smashed her cart into it, knocking it off me and driving the cart and the creature into the shelves. The stalker squirmed, pinned between the metal framework and the cart.

I pushed from the shelves. It liked bleach, I would give it bleach. I ran and dumped the bottle on the beast's face. The chlorine drowned its eyes and mouth.

The stalker convulsed. The cart went flying, cans and meat scattering on the concrete. The creature thrashed about, spasming, its limbs twisted. Cramps wracked its body. It jerked off the floor and crashed back like a fish out of water, and its head hit the concrete with a wet crunching sound. Cracks split its skull, seeping white slime. It hammered its head against the floor, leaving wet puddles.

The beast arched its back, clawed at the air, then stopped moving.

The woman picked up a set of cans wrapped in plastic off the floor. Ten jars of Bush's Best Baked Beans rose above her head and came down on top of the stalker's skull with a solid, crunchy thud. Score one for Homo sapiens.

The woman stared at the ruined body. Blood dripped from her arm. A fine spray of red covered her face—must've been cast off when she slammed down the cans. She wiped her face with her left forearm and kicked the stalker's corpse with her sneakered foot. "Don't mess with Texas."

I looked at her.

She shrugged. "Seemed like the right thing to say."

I had a dead stalker in the middle of Costco. There was no place to hide it. Even if I managed to miraculously stuff it somehow behind some paper plates, it would stink and be found, not to mention I had an eyewitness who probably wouldn't change her story and if someone suggested she was crazy would likely hit them with a thirty-six-ounce can of vegetables.

We were on the verge of complete exposure. Ice slid down my spine. Thoughts came in a panicked stampede, stumbling one over the other. They would come for the body, take tissue samples, snap pictures, and document it. It would be on the Internet within minutes. Once the body left Costco, there would be no way to contain it, and I would be irreversibly tied to it. I had fried the cameras and the hard drive, but my fingerprints were all over the place. The woman would identify me. I had blood and alien slime on my clothes. I had to take care of it here and now.

I had to hide the body.

Now.

"What the hell is this thing?"

"I have no idea, but you need to take care of that arm." I struggled to keep the shaking out of my voice. "It doesn't look sanitary."

"Isn't that the truth. It got you too. You think I should get the manager?" She looked at me.

I gripped the jug of bleach so tight it hurt. "Cleanup on aisle five." I smiled.

She giggled. I giggled back. It came out a little crazy. I sounded like a lunatic who just saw the full moon. I swallowed the giggle. "You go get the manager. I'll watch this, whatever this is."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

"Wait!"

She turned.

"Quietly," I said. "Old people and children."

She nodded and took off.

I sprinted to the corpse and dropped the bleach bottle onto the stalker.

It lay on a solid concrete slab. In a building that wasn't an inn.

Don't think about it. Just don't think about. Just because everyone says it can't be done doesn't mean jack.

The olive oil. I turned on my foot, ran down the aisle, grabbed the bottle, and dropped it onto the body. Cans dotted the aisle. I had to pick them up.

No time.

I crouched by the body, pressed my palms into the floor and concentrated. Why couldn't it have been wood? I could've wrenched individual boards up.

The magic streamed from me, pooling in the concrete like an invisible puddle.

Innkeepers had limits. Basic poltergeist was all most could hope for with a non-inn building. If you could mess with wires, you were way ahead of the pack.

Don't think about it. It's only impossible because nobody has done it before. I had no choice. I had to do it.

My skin went numb, but the inside of my arms hurt as if someone had hooked my veins and slowly began pulling them out of my body.

God, it hurt.

Don't think about it.

Just do it.

My body shook from the strain. The pain wrapped around my spine. I could barely breathe. It wasn't just pain, it was Pain with a capital P, the kind of agony that blocked out everything else.

The concrete was saturated. I could give no more.

I strained.

The pain lashed out like a white-hot whip across my back. A hair-thin crack slid across the aisle. The floor split.

That's right. That's exactly it.

The gap widened. The olive-oil bottle slid into it.

Just a little more. I clenched my teeth and pulled the inert concrete apart.

The body toppled into it.

Yes.

The world was growing dim. I wasn't passing out. I was just stuck in this horrible place between life and dying and it was made of hurt. I paused above the gap and for a second I thought I'd fall into it too.

Opening it wasn't enough. I had to close it. I pulled the concrete back. Come on. I might have as well have tried to push a semi out of the way. Come on.

My legs and arms shook. Slowly the concrete moved, inch by tiny inch. Come on.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't close it.

Yes, I could. It was my duty to close it. I would close it.

The pain wrapped around me like a scorching blanket.

The last inch of the gap disappeared. The concrete smoothed.

I couldn't get up. Oh no.

I grabbed the metal shelving, clung to it and pulled myself up. My head swam. I leaned onto my cart and pushed it. Got to go. Got to get out of the store. I forced myself to walk. My shoes must've sprouted needles, because walking hurt.

I turned behind the freezers and kept going. Through the gap I saw the dark-haired woman hurry across the floor, followed by a man in a black polo shirt and khakis. I'm sorry. You helped me, and because of me they will think you're crazy. If I ever had a chance, I would repay the favor.

I passed another aisle, wiped the handle of my cart with my shirt, and walked away from it. My shoulders were bleeding. I veered toward the tables with clothes and grabbed a dark sweatshirt. Slipping it on hurt. I kept the tag in plain view and headed for the checkout.

The shortest line had four people in it.

"Ma'am, I can help you over here!" A man. Average size. Dark hair. Costco tag.

I followed him and showed him the tag.

"Just the sweatshirt?" he asked.

I forced the word out of my mouth. "Yes."

"Your card."

I reached into my purse, fumbled with my wallet, pulled out the Costco card, scanned it, handed him a twenty, got a dollar in change, and then there was the door and I walked through it and out into the sun, car keys in hand.

My silver Chevy HHR was all the way at the end of the lane. I had always parked at the far end of the parking lot, both because it made leaving easier and because it put my car as far away from the security cameras as I could get. Today my habit would cost me.

The asphalt stretched in front of me. I put one foot in front of the other. The parking lot was doing a jig and it was making me dizzy. The heat of Texas summer assaulted me. I pulled the sweatshirt off.

If I passed out in the parking lot, it wouldn't be good. It would be very terrible.

I swayed and managed the last couple of feet, squeezing the remote of the car keys. The doors clicked and I slid into the back seat, shut the door, and lay flat.

Is this what dying felt like? Had I managed to kill myself? Mom? Dad? Do you know what happens now?

Snap out of it. I pulled my phone out of my jeans and fumbled with the icons. Last call. Sean.

"Hello," Sean's voice said into my ear.

I struggled to say something but I had no voice.

"Dina, are you okay?"

What happened to my voice?

"Are you hurt?"

...

"Where are you?"

I tried to hit the button for text message. Someone had turned my fingers into limp things that refused to obey. Here it is. C... O... S... The text showed complete gibberish. Ok, this won't work.

Attach picture. Attach. I got it on the third try and held the phone straight up. The camera clicked. I pushed Send on the screen.

The phone slipped out of my fingers.

If I died in the parking lot of Costco, I would be very unhappy in my afterlife.