One Fell Sweep

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.

Now he was dead and his body was a host for something too terrible to describe.

“Did he say anything? Did he recognize you?” Maud asked.

“If he did, he sure had a funny way of showing it.”

“Is it related to the Archivarius? Is it the Draziri?”

“I don’t know.”

Maud stopped and stared at me. “What’s next?”

“Next we report this to the Assembly.” That part was easy.

Maud resumed her pacing. “And they come and get it? Please tell me they come and get it.”

“They will eventually.”

My sister paused again. “How long is eventually?”

“I don’t know. I can’t contact the Assembly until tonight.” The rules for emergency contact weren’t just strict; they were draconian. A stray transmission could give away the existence of the inns, so the session had to be no more than thirty seconds and transmission had to be sent according to the time chart provided to every inn in the beginning of the year. I had checked it before, when thinking of accepting the Hiru’s bargain. My emergency session time was at 11:07 pm Central time.

“It’s still alive,” I said.

“What?”

“We have to store it and there is something… corrupt that’s still alive inside the body. Something that wants out.”

“How? Is it a creature? A parasite?”

“I don’t know. It attacked me when I got the sample. I had to stab it several times to get it to retreat. That’s the screech Helen heard.”

Maud swore. She and I looked at the resin coffin.

“What would it be afraid of?” she asked.

I rubbed my face. “There is no way to tell unless we analyze it and Gertrude Hunt won’t let me do that. Forcing the inn to take further samples is out of the question. We’re not set up to do this sort of analysis safely, and I won’t let this corruption infect us.”

“Fire?” Maud mused.

“Too difficult. It would have to be very hot and sustainable over time, and the inn doesn’t like open flames. It can deal with a small fire or even a bonfire outside, but flames of that intensity inside are a bad idea. No, we need something strong but viable long-term.”

We looked at the tube again.

“Acid,” we said at the same time.

It took me twenty minutes to build the chamber out of stone and fill our largest anchor tube with hydrochloric acid. We sealed the resin coffin inside another smaller tube, and suspended it in the acid. It wasn’t perfect. I would’ve preferred dumping it on some unknown planet, but one was responsible for what one set loose, and I didn’t want to shoulder the burden of unleashing this horror on anyone.

Once the tube was suspended, I set the alarms. If the plastic moved a fraction of an inch, the inn would scream in my head. We retreated to the lab, where I made the inn show me the chamber on the big screen. I sat and watched it. If it tried to break out after we left, I wanted to see it. Maud sat next to me.

Neither of us said anything.

“The Assembly will notify the family,” I said.

Thinking about looking at Mrs. Braswell as I struggled to explain what her son had turned into made me nauseous.

“They should,” Maud said.

We looked at the tank some more. Nothing moved. The Assembly had a lot of resources at its disposal. Some innkeepers specialized in research, and their inns had state of the art labs. And of course, there were ad-hal. When innkeeper children grew up, they had three paths open to them. A lot of us left the planet and became Travelers, bumming around the great beyond. Of those who stayed, some gave up on the innkeeper life altogether and rejoined human society, leading normal lives. But if you wanted to remain in our world, you could become an innkeeper by inheriting the inn from your parents or, very rarely, being transferred to a new inn. Or you became an ad-hal. An ancient word for secret, the ad-hal served as the Assembly’s, and by extension, the Galactic Senate’s, enforcers on Earth. My power was tied to the inn. The power of an ad-hal came from within them. When things went bad, terribly, catastrophically bad, an ad-hal would come and deal with it. The ad-hal knew no mercy. They would assess the situation and deliver the punishment. Seeing one was never a good sign.

Maybe the Assembly would send an ad-hal to retrieve Michael’s body.

“I will stand vigil for his soul tonight,” Maud said.

“I killed him.”

“No, you freed him. You need your strength,” she said. “He deserves a vigil.”

“Okay.”

Minutes crept past.

Maud finally spoke. “How are things between you and Sean?”

“Fine.”

“Aha. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Because I’m right here.”

“Maud…” I started, but caught myself.

“That’s my name. Don’t be afraid, you won’t wear it out.”

“You have just been through… a lot of things. You buried your husband. I don’t want to dump my romantic problems on you.”

“I never thought you would find someone who was in,” Maud said.

“In?”

“In our world. In our little innkeeper circle. I always thought that you would go off and have a normal life with someone, I don’t know, someone named Phil.”

“Phil?” I blinked.

“Yes. He would be an accountant or a lawyer. You would have a perfectly normal marriage and perfectly normal children. Your biggest worry would be making sure the other PTA moms didn’t outshine you at faculty appreciation day.”

I blinked. “First, how do you even know about faculty appreciation day? You attended school for what, a year in high school?”

She sighed. “Would you believe me if I told you that vampires have them?”

“What do you bring to a vampire faculty appreciation day?”

“Weapons,” Maud said. “Usually small knives. Ornate and pricey.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“No. There is a lot of etiquette involved in deciding the exact value of a knife to bring… Okay, yes, I’m pulling your leg. Snacks. You bring snacks to a vampire faculty appreciation day. And extra school supplies are very much appreciated. I don’t care how advanced your civilization is, children still want to draw on the rocks with colored chalk.”

“Why did you think I would go off and marry someone normal?”

“Because you were so whiny before I left.”

I stared at her.

“You were,” Maud said. “It was all me, me, me. Oh I am so put upon that I have to live in this magic house and nobody understands. You didn’t want anything to do with the inn. Making you do chores was like pulling teeth. All you wanted to do was leave the inn and hang out with your high school friends.”

“I was barely eighteen. And they weren’t friends; they were frenemies.”

Maud grinned. “I always thought I would end up being an innkeeper.”

“I always thought you’d be an ad-hal.” I smiled, but I wasn’t joking. She would’ve made an excellent ad-hal.

“You think I’m ruthless enough.”

“Mhm. You have ruthlessness to spare.”

She sighed. “Instead, I’m the widow of a dishonored knight, while you have an inn and are trying to date a complicated homicidal werewolf.”

“You could get your own inn.” It wouldn’t be easy, but Maud never quit because things were a challenge.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think that’s in the cards, Dina. I’m proud of you and of everything you did to get this far, but it’s not for me. I was Melizard’s wife for six years. I’m good at fighting. I’ve learned to be good at political maneuvering. If you give me a battlefield or a ballroom filled with people who want to slit my throat, I know what to do. But sitting in the inn, trying to juggle the needs of a dozen guests, with all of them wanting something at once, while keeping the whole thing a secret from the outside world isn’t in me. It’s going into a fight with your arms tied.”

My heart sank. “Does this mean you won’t stay with me here, at Gertrude Hunt?”

“It means I don’t want my own inn. I’ll stay with you, Dina. As long as you will have me here.”

“Good. Because otherwise I’d have to kick your ass.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Mom and Dad disappeared, and you came to me, and I was too wrapped up in my own problems. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Emotion trembled in her voice.

“You were married and just had a baby.”

“It’s not an excuse. You’re my little sister. You needed me and I wasn’t there. That’s not what big sisters do.”

“I wasn’t by myself. I had Klaus.”

She swiped moisture from her eyes. “Where is he now?”

“Who knows.” I sighed.

“Do you think he’s in trouble?”

“Klaus? Our Klaus? No. But before he left, he promised me he would come back when he found out something about Mom and Dad. You know how he is.”

“He won’t come back unless he has something.” Maud looked resigned. “Men.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m here now. Tell me about your werewolf.”

She didn’t say it, but I heard it in her voice. Maud hated to be treated as a victim. She didn’t want any allowances to be made for her. She wanted to be the big sister again. I would meet her halfway.

“I’m… conflicted. And we had a fight.”

“What was the fight about?”

“I expended too much magic shielding myself and him from that thing.” I nodded at the screen. “Afterward Sean wanted to take me straight to the inn and I made him go and get the tank with the Archivarian in it.”

“Define ‘made him.’”

“I cried and asked him to get it.”

“You cried? You?”

“I think I did. I also might have implied that I wouldn’t open the door to the inn without it. At least I intended to imply that. It’s a bit fuzzy. So we went and got the Archivarian from Wilmos’ shop. Now he is upset. He gave me an ultimatum: either I let him do his job or he will take his ball and go. He says he’s a trained killer and I’m not.”

“He has a point. Do you know how he got his training?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No. It’s not my place to tell.”

She sighed. “Fair enough. I can tell you what I saw tonight. I’ve spent the last few years among professional soldiers, who go to the battlefield because it’s their job. When they kill, they do it efficiently and quickly. When they gather enough training and experience, they do it instinctually, like breathing. They see things in black and white, because shades of gray would kill them, and eventually they no longer agonize over it. They start out from different backgrounds, they have different personalities, they may be human, or vampire, or Otrokar, but sooner or later they all end up in a place where detachment rules. It’s a way for them to survive, because we’re not meant to slaughter other beings week after week.”

She paused.

“Okay,” I said, to say something.

“Your wolf isn’t like these soldiers. He kills, because a part of him needs it. He’s a predator, Dina.”

“You make him sound like a maniac. He doesn’t revel in it.”

“I didn’t say he did. He isn’t cruel. But when he comes to the battlefield, he doesn’t see the enemy. He sees prey. He isn’t detached. He’s all in. Tonight, he punished. He broke their bones, he made them scream, and then he cut off their heads and put them on a pike.”

“He’s been through a lot.”

Maud nodded. “I know. I’m trying to explain something that I feel, and it’s difficult. Despite the way the movies and books make it seem, when you’re out there and someone is trying to kill you, you don’t think. You just act. You kill the enemy as quickly as you can, because that’s your only option. He’s… Not like that. He’s active. He doesn’t surrender to that fight or flight response. I watched him mow through the Draziri. He looked at them for half a second, formulated a plan, and followed it. All of him is fully engaged, even the part that most people shut off.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Maud sighed. “When you came to find me, you picked up Helen. Why?”

“It seemed like a natural thing to do. I could run faster carrying her than she could run alone. I could shield her.”

“The moment you picked her up, neither you nor she could effectively respond to threats. You added fifty pounds to your load. You also robbed her of the only advantage she had: mobility. Helen is fast and good at dodging. She couldn’t dodge while you were carrying her.”

“Well…”

“Yeah.”

She had a point. I didn’t like it, but she was right.

“You made it to the door because, when Sean saw you scooping her up, he started cutting a way for you to get there. He didn’t say anything. He just compensated. Your instincts aren’t always right in a fight, Dina. But his are. Put him into any army, and in a few weeks he’ll be leading it, because professional soldiers would see him fight and know that he would survive. It’s something you feel. It’s a lizard brain thing. If I had a strategy planned and it was the best plan in the world, and he told me to change it, I would, because he has something I don’t. So when you’re in danger and he tells you to follow his lead, you should.”

“I don’t like ultimatums.”

“Neither do I. But he had a reason to give you one. I think he loves you, Dina. He’s afraid of losing you.”

I stared at her.

“If you’re in danger and you hobble him, both of you might die. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. That’s why you gave him that dollar. What is this fight really about?”

I closed my eyes.

She waited.

“I’m afraid he’ll leave.” There. It came out. “I hate this.”

“Why?”

“Because I sound needy and desperate.”

Maud snorted. “You’re the least needy person I know.”

“I want him to stay here with me and run the inn. I want to wake up every day and see him there in bed with me. And I barely know him. We had one date. Am I that lonely, Maud? Because I’m all in and I don’t know if he is, and I have no right to ask for that much. You know what it means to be an innkeeper. We are bound to our inns.”

“If you were just lonely, you would clutch on to anybody who came along,” she said. “Would you take Arland instead of Sean?”

“No.”

“See?”

“You took two years to decide you loved Melizard.”

She snorted again. “And look how much good it did me. I don’t regret it, because I have Helen now. But it wasn’t the best move. Who cares about dates? It’s when you’re under pressure together, that’s what counts. He risked his life for you. He was ready to fight for the Hiru, because he saw an injustice. Is he kind when it’s difficult? Does he still do the right thing when everything turns to shit?”

He sold himself to the Merchants for a lifetime contract to keep me from dying. “Yes.”

“Then talk to him. Tell him how you feel. Nothing kills it faster than not talking. Trust me, I know. That’s how my marriage died.”

Her face was flat. No emotion. No tremor in her voice. She’d loved Melizard so much, she followed him across the galaxy to an alien planet, where she molded herself into a perfect vampire knight’s spouse. And it ended so badly.

I wanted to hug her, but she sat stiff, her back straight. No weakness.

A screen opened in the wall. The Hiru’s odd features filled it.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“The third Archivarian is arriving to the inn in five minutes,” the Hiru said. “Please remove the void field.”

I reached through the inn with my senses. Sean waited by the back porch.

“Sean,” I whispered. “I need your help.”

I felt him move toward me.

“Oh Sean…” Maud whispered in a sing-song voice, rolling her eyes.

I squinted at her. “Do you want to call Arland or should I?”

“You do it,” she said.

I reached through the inn. Arland was in the kitchen, with Helen. Probably fixing his armor again.

“Lord Marshal,” I said. “Could I please see you in the war room?”

Less than a minute later Sean came striding through the door. Arland was only a few steps behind. Helen rode on his shoulder like a parrot. Maud opened her mouth and clicked it shut.

“The third Archivarian is arriving to the inn in four minutes and ten seconds,” I said. “I have to drop the void field. Are you in?”

“Of course.” Arland gently set Helen on the floor.

“Yes,” Sean said.

So much for his ultimatums.

“For the Archivarian to get here, the other side must open a door,” Maud said. “A portal. If I were the Draziri, I’d try to detonate it the moment I saw it.”

“The portal will open in the back field,” I said. Each inn listed the official coordinates for the designated arrivals. Ours were in the back, where the house would block the view. “We must preserve the Archivarian at all costs. We need a plan. Sean?”

A calculation took place in Sean’s eyes. “The Draziri are positioned all around the inn on the wooded side. They’re watching the grounds.”

“You want to structure our defense around the portal?” Arland asked.

“No,” Sean said. “I don’t want to defend it at all.”

Arland mulled it over. His blond eyebrows edged together. Maud grinned like a wolf and pulled her new blood sword out.

“If they see you, they will key in on you,” Sean said to me.

“He’s right,” Arland confirmed. “You’re a high-priority target. If they eliminate you, their chances of killing the Hiru rise substantially.”

“How safe would you be out in the open?” Sean asked me.

“Perfectly safe as long as I’m on the inn’s grounds.” I could block any kinetic projectiles and the inn could absorb most energy bombardments with my direction. “Do you want me out there to play bait?”

“Yes,” Sean said. “Does the inn have something that could bombard the land outside of the boundary?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“A weapon that won’t draw attention from the street but will be dangerous enough to scatter the Draziri.”

Gertrude Hunt was a lot stronger than it used to be. Still, its resources were limited.

“Does it have to be precise?”

“No,” Sean said. “As long as it has an impact.”

It was my turn to smile. “If you want impact, I’ll give you one.”

A short shadow fell on the doorway.

“Wing?” I asked.

The Ku stepped into the open. His feathered crest lay completely flat on his head. He was terrified. “I fight.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I fight,” the Ku said. “I want to help.”

He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Sean.

“We can use you,” Sean told him.

The sun was setting. Twilight descended on Texas, turning harmless trees dark and twisted. I opened the kitchen door, dropped the void field, and walked out into the backyard, Beast on my right and Wing armed with one of Sean’s weapons, a short simple-looking rifle, on my left. I’d asked Sean what it was and he told me it was the space equivalent of a sawed-off shotgun.

We reached the middle of the lawn. I stopped. The soil shifted and slid under me.

For a tense moment, nothing happened. Then a volley of shots, energy and kinetic, tore through the dusk, coming at me from a ragged semicircle. There you are.

Roots burst from the ground, dragging a wall of dirt with it to shield me from the worst of the barrage. The broom split in my hand and I plunged it into the ground. Magic poured out of me.

The lawn belched. Three rocks the size of a washing machine burst from the ground. I heaved with my magic. The boulders rolled at the Draziri. Wing fired, his rifle spitting pale blue projectiles. They landed in the trees and the brush, expanded like water balloons, and exploded silently in bursts of bright blue light. The glow caught fleeing shapes of Draziri, scattering through the brush. The boulders chased them, spinning along the boundary.

A twisted spiral of deep purple spun into existence above the ground, directly over the entrance coordinates. Individual Draziri broke free of the trees, trying to avoid my rocks and sprinting toward the forming vortex, light on their feet as if they could dance on air.

I pushed. The grass between the vortex and the boundary erupted and spat Arland in full battle armor. The Marshal of House Krahr roared and charged the ragged Draziri line. He tore into them like a bowling ball, mace swinging. A single hit sent a Draziri flying onto the inn grounds. The roots wound around her body and hurled her through the trees back the way she came.

Arland raged, loud and terrifying. The Draziri stabbed and cut at him and he tore through them, immune to fear and pain. The blood mace crashed down again and again, crushing skulls and breaking bones. I couldn’t see it, but I knew that behind the battle, in the dark, my sister and Sean sliced through the Draziri ranks from the sides, like the two blades of scissors.

The vortex was almost complete.

A scream tore the night. Another. The Draziri dashed to and fro, panicking.

The vortex spat an Archivarius member. An argon tank rose from the lawn. The being stepped into it and the tank sank into the ground. Got him.

A second shape loomed within the vortex, a grotesque clunky shape. Another Hiru was coming through.

A large projectile shot out of the tree line. In the split second it flew over the inn’s territory, my magic told me what it was. I shoved a doorway in its way, ripping through the fabric of our world. The missile tore through the hole in reality, sped over an orange ocean, and crashed into alien waters. Kolinda’s ocean screamed. A mountain of water and vapor burst upward, blooming like some horrible flower.

Panic shot through me, a delayed response. Icy sweat drenched my skin. My heart hammered so hard, it felt like it might break my ribs. The muscles in my neck clenched so hard, vertigo gripped me.

I shut the door before the blast wave could reach us.

The Hiru landed on the grass. The vortex dissolved into empty air. I jerked the roots up, shielding the new guest from the Draziri and let Gertrude Hunt carry him away underground.

Maud leaped over the boundary. A moment later Arland emerged from the woods, dragging bodies with him, as Sean, shaggy with gray fur, all fangs and claws like some demonic nightmare, moved around the vampire knight, slicing at the Draziri. Arland punched an opponent with his left fist. Sean caught the falling Draziri, stabbing in a flurry. Another attacker lunged at Sean’s back and Arland drove his mace into him.

Together Sean and Arland backed away from the woods toward the inn. Arland was breathing hard, his mace dripping blood. Dents and gashes marked his armor. The fur on Sean’s right shoulder was wet and black in the light of the dying evening. I couldn’t tell if it was his blood or someone else’s.

Step.

Another step.

They made it over the boundary. I snapped the void field in place.

Blood dripped on Maud’s cheek from a gash in her scalp. Dirt smeared her face. She saw me looking and grinned, her teeth stark white.

The tree line was littered with corpses. One, two, three… seven…

“I know this,” Arland said quietly, almost to himself. “I fought against this…”

Sean straightened. His fur vanished, his body collapsing back into his human form. Slowly he wiped the blade of his green knife on his thigh.

Arland pivoted to him. His gaze snagged on the knife. A muscle jerked in his face.

Sean didn’t say anything.

Rage shivered in the corner of Arland’s mouth.

The Marshal of House Krahr bared his fangs and charged.

Sean moved out of the way, smooth and fast, as if he were a shadow rather than a physical being.

Arland swung again and missed.

“You!” Arland roared. “Fight me, oryh. Fight me!”

“No,” Sean said and dropped his knife.

I took a step forward. Sean shook his head.

I could stop it, but if I did, it wouldn’t be resolved. They had to fix it themselves.

“Fight me or die!”

“You’re my friend,” Sean said and raised his hands.

Arland swung his mace. Sean didn’t dodge. The blow took him in the stomach. Sean flew back.

Arland charged after him, his eyes berserk and hot with unstoppable fury.

Maud lunged into his path and threw her arms around him. “Stop!”

He plowed on, carrying her as if she weighed nothing.

“Stop, Marshal!” Maud’s voice rang. “He’s unarmed. He’s your friend. There’s no honor in this kill.”

Arland slowed.

“Honor,” Maud repeated, her hands around his face, looking straight into his eyes. “He who sheds his blood to defend my back in battle is my brother. I shall watch over him as he watches over me.”

Reason crept into Arland’s blue eyes. He pulled away from her, raised his head to the night sky, and roared.

“Innkeeper,” a familiar voice called.

I turned. Kiran Mrak stood at the boundary. Behind him his clansmen waited, some with black feathers, some with bright blue, and vibrant red and rich cream. They stared at me with open hatred.

“I didn’t give the order for the missile,” he said.

“You fired a nuclear weapon,” I said. “You broke the treaty. There will be repercussions. There is no turning back.”

“There was a dissension in my ranks. It’s something you and I have in common.” Kiran Mrak raised his left hand. He was holding a severed Draziri head. “I’ve dealt with mine. It is your turn.”

I turned my back to him. He laughed.

“I don’t kill those I care about,” I said over my shoulder.

“You’re weak.”

“You murder your own family. Loyalty is a two-way street.”

He laughed again.

I kept walking.

Wing marched to me, stared at the Draziri behind me, turned and deliberately kicked dirt in their direction.

Sean rolled to his feet and picked up his knife.

Arland lifted his mace and stomped toward the house. Maud walked next to him, her arm wrapped around his.

Sean was waiting for me. I hurried over to him. “Are you hurt?”

“A cracked rib,” he said. “It will heal. He held back.”

It didn’t look like he held back from where I was standing. “Come on. I’ll help you with your rib. We need to talk.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We do.”

When I walked into the kitchen, Caldenia smiled at me, clearly delighted. “Very good, dear. Just the right thing to say.”

“I’m glad you approve, Your Grace.”

“A creature like Kiran Mrak rules because he has the mandate of his people. His followers are his base. Crack the base, and he will come crashing down.” Caldenia put the fingers of her hands together. “This will be delightfully entertaining.”

I turned to the two Hiru. Sunset stood in front and the newcomer behind, as if Sunset was shielding the new guest. I had a feeling that if the Hiru weren’t so bulky, the new arrival would be peeking out at us over his shoulder. It would have helped to know that the second Hiru was coming prior to the battle. I opened my mouth to tell them that.

The new Hiru pointed at me. “Is this her?” Its voice was soft, sad, and feminine.

“This is her,” Sunset said. “This is Hope.”

I stood in the middle of the empty room. A six-foot-wide circle of soft turquoise light marked the floor around me, identifying the boundary of the recording area. I wore my blue robe with the hood down and held my broom in my hand.

It took some time to settle the two Hiru. I wasn’t sure if the Hiru had genders, but if they had been human, I would’ve guessed our new guest to be female. She was smaller than Sunset, her sad voice was higher pitched, and when the other Hiru spoke of her, his translation software used “she” as the identifying pronoun.

However, the galaxy was a big place. While dual sexes and sexual dimorphism occurred often enough, it was only one of the myriad of configurations for procreation and sex. The Garibu had three sexes and six genders, the Allui males were smaller and more fragile than females, and the Parakis formed a mating ball, where everyone went through a three-stage molting process, during which they changed sex twice. When one of these beings visited Earth, their translating software struggled to assign gender to make alien speech palatable to humans, often with hilarious results. So, I wasn’t sure if the new Hiru was truly female, but since Sunset referred to her as she, I referred to her so as well. After I took her to see the Archivarians, she told me her name. She was called Moonlight-on-the-Water.

Moonlight loved Sunset’s room. She walked over the threshold and gave a little gasp. He reached for her, and they walked toward the pool together, their metal arms touching. That’s where I left them, floating in the basin and staring at the clouded ceiling.

The Hiru settled, I went to look for my sister and found her in the kitchen carefully spooning coffee she’d brewed into a mug half-filled with eggnog. She shrugged and told me Arland needed it. And then she took it up to his rooms. I thought about telling her that the last time the Marshal of House Krahr had coffee, he stripped off his clothes and ran around my orchard in broad daylight, flaunting the gifts the vampire goddess gave him until Sean finally tackled him, but she did make fun of me when I’d called for Sean, so I decided to let her discover the wonder that was drunk Arland on her own. She had measured that coffee very carefully, so maybe Arland would manage to keep his clothes on.

I checked on Helen, who’d fallen asleep in her room, with the cat curled up by her feet. I checked on Wing. The battle shook him up and he’d reenacted his heroic deeds for me just to make sure that they were truly heroic. Confirming the heroism took a little longer than expected. It was 10:40 pm now and my window for communication with the Assembly was approaching.

Tension twisted the muscles of my neck. This would be the third time in my life I addressed the Assembly. The first time, I just stood by my brother’s side, as Klaus petitioned the Assembly for assistance in finding my parents. That time we heard nothing for over a month, after which the Assembly expressed its condolences and informed us that their investigation uncovered nothing. The second time I petitioned them for my own inn. The reply had come in twelve hours with the name of the inn and Gertrude Hunt’s address.

I ran the message through my mind one more time. I’d rehearsed in my head six or seven times now. It was correctly worded: no names, no addresses, nothing that would lead back to me if it was somehow decrypted by a third party. I shouldn’t have been this nervous, but tension had clamped me like a bear trap and refused to let go.

Sean slipped into the room, the wall behind him sealing the moment he entered. I’d invited him. He wanted to check the grounds first, which in his speak meant he wanted to scout the Draziri and see how much damage we’d managed to inflict. I asked him to find me when he was done and told the inn to show him the way. I’d hoped to talk to him before I sent the message, but it was too late now. We’d have to speak after. It was better this way anyway. I wasn’t in any shape to talk until the message was out.

The scanner snapped to life, bathing me in the light and setting my blond hair aglow. I almost jumped. I’d programmed the scanner for 10:40, but it startled me all the same. I was wound up too tight.

The light focused on me.

The galaxy birthed many languages, but one of them was older than most, so old it was almost forgotten except by innkeepers and those like us. I opened my mouth and the lilting words of Old Galactic rolled off my tongue like a song that was as ancient as the stars.

“Greetings to the Assembly. I bring two matters before you. First, two of my guests are Hiru. Tonight the Draziri besieging my inn fired a nuclear missile at the inn’s grounds. To save the lives of my guests, I directed it off world. I deeply regret the resulting loss of life and hope no sentient beings have been harmed as a result. I do not require assistance at this time.”

There. I made a formal notification that the treaty had been breached. The ball was in their court. I’d included the coordinates of the nuclear explosion and they could view the evidence for themselves.

“Second, I was attacked by an unknown enemy at Baha-char. It was a creature of darkness and corruption. With the assistance of friends, it was defeated and brought to my inn, where the corruption attempted to leave its host and infect me and the inn itself. The corpse is contained, but I do not know how long the containment will last. Before sealing the body, I took a DNA sample, and a match was found in the database. The body belongs to an innkeeper, a friend of my family. I’ve enclosed the evidence for your review.”

The blue light changed to deep indigo as the scanner encrypted my message, chewing up data and images I’d attached into a chaotic mess decipherable only by innkeeper decryption protocols.

A digital clock appeared on the wall. Thirty seconds to communication window. I cut it a little closer than I should have. Twenty seconds.

Ten.

The scanner light pulsed with white. The message was off.

“What now?” Sean asked.

“Now the Assembly has to decide what to do. I’ve done my part.”

“How does that work?” he asked. “Do they poll all of the innkeepers?”

“They can if the matter concerns a change to innkeeper policy. This almost never happens. Most of the time, things like this are discussed among heads of the twenty-five oldest or strongest inns on the planet. I think Mr. Rodriguez is part of that twenty-five. When my parents…”

I’d almost said when my parents were alive. I pulled way back from that thought. I couldn’t think like that. They were alive now. Until I saw evidence of their death, irrefutable evidence, I had to think of them as alive and I would look for them.

“When my parents’ inn was active, my father and mother shared a single vote among twenty-five. My father was unique and his input was valued.”

“When will you know something?” he asked.

“It’s impossible to say.” The wall parted in front of me, opening into a long hallway. I walked into it and Sean joined me. “They may choose to send some reply back, they might act on it without telling me, or they might ignore me.”

“This doesn’t seem like the most organized system,” Sean said. “If you needed help and asked for it, there is no way to know if you’ll get it.”

“Each innkeeper is a world unto herself,” I said. “It’s the way it’s always been. There were times in history when we spoke in one voice, like when we banned a species from Earth for gross disregard of the treaty.”

The tunnel opened and we walked onto a wide covered balcony with a sunken fire pit in the center and a ring of couches around it, strewn with bright pillows. A kettle waited, hanging off a hook on a metal pole. Sean raised his eyebrows.

“The Otrokar quarters?”

I nodded. “I don’t know why, but sitting by the fire makes me feel better.”

The fire had already been laid out. Sean took a lighter from the side table and lit it. The hot orange flame licked the logs. The tinder in the center of the stack caught fire, cracking. The flames spread, gulping the logs. Warmth spread through the balcony.

I picked up the tea kettle dangling from the ceremonial stick and hung it on the metal rail above the fire.

Sean sat across from me on the bright pillows. “The Khanum would approve.”

I nodded. That’s how the Otrokars made their tea for hundreds of years.

“How are your ribs?” I asked.

“Not as bad as they could’ve been.” Sean smiled.

“I have a medbay, you know. It’s not as nice as what the Merchants had, but I’m sure you could slum it just this once…”

“I’m okay.”

I sniffed. The water boiled and I took the kettle off the fire, hung it back on the hook, and tossed the leaves into it. Tea in winter was the best… Oh. The realization hit me like a train. Maybe I was off by a day or two… No. I was right. I felt like crying.

“What is it?” he asked, focused on me.

“It’s Christmas.”

Sean frowned.

“Tonight is Christmas. I don’t have a tree. I didn’t get any presents. I didn’t decorate. I have nothing.” I couldn’t keep the despair out of my voice. “I missed Christmas.”

It was the stupidest thing, but I had to strain to keep the tears back.

He moved over, sat next to me, and put his arm around me.

This wasn’t how I planned this conversation to go. I planned on a formal detached discussion. Instead I leaned against him, because his eyes told me he understood.

“It’s just a date on the calendar,” he said, stroking my shoulder lightly with his fingers. “We can still have Christmas.”

“It wouldn’t be real.”

He shook his head.

“Helen doesn’t care that it wouldn’t be exactly on December 25th. Caldenia doesn’t care. Orro will jump on any excuse to cook a feast. Your sister

could use a Christmas. She hasn’t had one for a while. We’ll get a tree, we’ll decorate, we’ll wrap presents, and I’ll kill any Draziri that tries to interfere…”

I stuck my head into his hard chest. He held me tighter.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Residual combat stress,” he said. “Happens when a corrupted innkeeper almost kills you and then an idiot assassin shoots a nuke at you, all in twenty-four hours.”

“When did you learn Old Galactic?”

“About three or four months into the Nexus tour. There wasn’t much to do but fight and wait to fight. I went through a lot of manuals and brain imprints. It kept me from snapping. I’m a walking encyclopedia of random knowledge.”

I let out a long slow breath. He rubbed my back.

“I thought you were packed.”

“Where would I go?” he asked me.

I leaned against him and we sat quietly for a while in front of the fire. There was no give in Sean. No softness in his body. It was all hard muscle and bones, wrapped in harsh predatory strength. The lean lone wolf trotted out of the dark woods to lay by the fire because I was here. He never abandoned who he was. He still had his sharp teeth and fiery eyes, not tame, but content to behave so I wouldn’t chase him off. It made me want to go down to the kitchen and bring him something to eat.

I had put together a logical, convincing speech, but all of that seemed stupid now.

“The inn has to come first,” I said. “The safety of the guests before the safety of the innkeeper.”

He didn’t say anything.

“It’s a weird life. Once you bond with the inn, you can never truly leave. Even if you do, you still feel the pull of it. Some people view it as being trapped and they can’t wait to get out. It can get boring when there are no guests. Then again, when there are guests, it can get so busy you barely have a chance to sleep. Sometimes guests want unreasonable things. Some of them listen to you explain the danger and then run straight into it. But that’s your life. You take care of the inn. You keep them safe. They leave and you stay. Always.”

He still wasn’t saying anything.

I took a deep breath. “This is what I chose. Right or wrong, I’m here. This is my home.”

Why was this so hard? I just had to say it. Even if he got up and walked away, at least I would know where we stood.

“If you’re going to be an innkeeper with me—“

He pulled me closer. My voice caught. I swallowed and kept going. “—you would have to put the safety of the guests first. I will follow your lead in a fight. I won’t argue or beg. I won’t ask you to change your strategy. But this life would have to be enough, because I can’t unchoose it. If that’s not what you want…”

He didn’t say anything. It felt like a lifetime. The air was viscous and heavy, like I was swimming through molasses.

I raised my gaze. He was looking at me, his amber eyes full of flames from the fire. “But would I get you, if I were an innkeeper?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all I want.”

The weight dropped off me. I didn’t realize I was carrying it. I kissed him. One moment I was looking at him and then my lips touched his, forging a connection between us.

The muscles of his arm tightened under my fingers. His lips closed on mine, hot and hungry. The kiss deepened, turning possessive, hot, heady like the intoxicating heat of strong wine gulped too quickly. He licked my tongue. He tasted so good. I slid my arms around him, wanting more. I didn’t care if the whole galaxy burned, as long as he kept kissing me like that.

He broke the kiss. His eyes were completely wild. The wolf was staring back at me and he wanted me more than anything in his forest. It made me feel beautiful.

“Not tonight,” he said. “You’re not in the right place tonight.”

He was right. I slid closer to him and put my head on his chest. “Okay.”

A few seconds passed.

“I’m an idiot,” Sean said. He sounded resigned.

“No,” I told him. “You’re my wolf.”

He turned to me and a sharp humorous spark lit up his eyes. “Don’t you know wolves are dangerous?”

“I do. You should kiss me again, Sean Evans. I really want you to.”

He kissed me back and I melted into it.