Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 2) (24 page)

“One? Hour?”

“Yes.”

Orro swung his stick and knife. “I have fish. Delicate fish. I have soufflé. I have… I can do one hour. But no more!” He waved the knife for emphasis. “No more. Not one minute, not one second, not one nanosecond, not one attosecond more.”

“Thank you.”

I walked into the front room, Gaston followed me.

The Arbiter’s delegation had, for some reason, decided to appropriate my front room despite the perfectly adequate space in their quarters. George was absorbed in his reader. Jack and Lark were playing chess. Given that I was terrible at chess, I had no idea who was winning. Her Grace had artfully arranged herself in a chair by the window and indulged in a cup of hibiscus tea and her tablet. Judging by the small smile on her lips, Caldenia was reading something with a lot of smut or a lot of murder.

“Attosecond?” Gaston asked.

“I’m guessing it’s a very, very small fraction of a second,” I said.

“One quintillionth of a second,” George said, without raising his head from his reader.

Jack pondered him. “Have you started memorizing random crap again to amuse yourself?”

“No, I’m connected to the wireless,” George said. “I googled it.”

The otrokari shaman emerged from the hallway, wearing a tattered black cloak. His long black hair, tinted with a hint of purple, spilled over it. Combined with his skin, a deep bronze with an almost green undertone, the hair made his pale green eyes startling on his harsh, angular face.

“Ruga,” I inclined my head. “Are you ready to inspect the site?”

He nodded.

I stepped outside, Gaston and the shaman in tow. I had a feeling George had assigned Gaston to me, because he’d been trailing me for the past half an hour.

Dagorkun had informed me that they would need a clearing that was at least five akra long and wide, which roughly translated to a square with a side of thirty five point two yards. I would have to appropriate part of the new land for it. After we took down the alien assassin last summer, I had used part of the money I had earned from House Krahr to purchase another acre. It sat in the back of the property, past the orchard, on the north side, securely cushioned from view by dense oaks and cedars. Fueled by the boost of Arland’s, Sean’s, and Caldenia’s presence, the inn had rooted through the new land almost overnight and spent the last seven months or so making it its own. That provided me with a large enough area for the otrokari festival.

The new land had cost me fifteen thousand dollars, primarily because the acre housed a bat cave and couldn’t be zoned for building. The cave itself opened a few hundred yards to the east, outside of my property, and if the peace summit succeeded, I would buy it. The bats could prove very useful.

I stopped and surveyed the lot. Small gnarled cedars rose above the grass, flanked by some bushes. I had never liked the Texas cedars. They always looked really dry and starved of water with their rough trunks and, just to add insult to injury, every winter they spat out clouds of yellow pollen so thick it blanketed the hoods of the cars in fine powder overnight.

“This is wrong,” the shaman said. “There are too many trees. There is no water and the ground is too uneven.”

I inhaled and let my magic flow.

The soil around the cedar trunks softened. Ripples pulsed through it, like waves from a stone cast into a pond. The trees shuddered and sank into the ground whole, twisting as they were sucked into the ground. No sense in wasting the wood. The otrokari would likely need some for the festival. The inn would prepare the logs and absorb what was left afterward for its own purposes down the road.

Gaston’s eyebrows rose. The shaman frowned.

Obeying my push, the ground smoothed out. A foot wide trench formed along the perimeter of the clearing. Rocks, stones, and pebbles, most pale sandstone, rose from the depth of the ground, like mushrooms caps, to line the bottom of the trench. I raised the south end of it about eight inches to create a slope. A long garden hose snaked its way from the house. A second hose connected to the first and its end dropped into the trench. Water spilled onto the rocks and obediently flowed down the newly made stream bed. I walked along the trench, adjusting the height as needed.

The shaman stepped over the trench, reached inside his cloak, and produced a pouch made out of scaled hide. He whispered something, opened the pouch, and spilled bright red powder into the air. For a moment the red cloud lingered, suspended by some invisible force, and then the individual particles fell, sinking into the soil. A subtle change came over the area. I couldn’t see any difference with the naked eye, but now the land enclosed my artificial stream felt slightly odd. It still belonged to the inn, but now it also responded to the shaman’s magic.

“Are there any additional adjustments you would like me to make?” I asked.

He shook his head. “This will suffice. I have work to do here before the festival can begin.”

“Do you require wood for the fires?”

“Yes.”

A pile of cedar logs rose from the ground.

I inclined my head. “Gaston will keep you company so there are no incidents.”

The shaman spared me a look. “I now stand on the land of my ancestors. There are things in this life I fear. Vampires are not one of them.”

“All the same, I would like Gaston to stay with you. Please let me know if there is anything else you require.”

I walked away. I had more preparations to make. Lord Robart’s guests from House Meer would need their own small set of rooms. Putting them in with the Holy Anocracy’s delegation was asking for trouble.

###

Red curtains or blue curtains? I peered at the guest suite for Nuan Cee’s “employee.” When I pressed Nuan Cee for specifics about his guest, he played dumb. I tried dropping subtle hints, then more obvious hints, until finally, I straight out asked what sort of furniture I should provide for the new addition to his delegation. His answer was “large,” after which he informed me that he was too tired to continue the conversation and needed to retire.

Large as in human large? Vampire large? Nuan Cee large? Which large were we talking about? First, Sophie, now this. This new thing with guests arriving but not bothering to explain to me their species or any preferences was getting really annoying.

I caught myself before my irritation tainted the room. I had settled on a very basic set of furnishings, light bamboo floor, and beige walls. The room desperately needed color, but I would have to add it on the fly. Here is hoping his guest wasn’t a Ravelian Slug.

“It will have to do,” I told Beast.

A chime sounded in my head. Lord Robart’s guests were about to arrive. I checked the time. We had less than fifteen minutes before the celebration was set to start.

Time is a funny thing. When you have a headache, five minutes seem like an eternity. When you’re trying to prepare for the otrokari celebration, make two additional guest suites, one for the vampires and the other for the merchants, and pacify a melodramatic seven foot tall hedgehog-like chef convinced that his fish will become inedible because it has to wait an extra hour in the refrigerator, three hours go by in a blink.

I hurried to the front room. The sun had set, the day burning down to purple embers in the west. Twilight claimed the streets, painting the floorboards of the hallway in cool blue and purple. We had less than fifteen minutes before the celebration started. I made it just as George walked down the stairs. He was wearing an indigo doublet that set off his pale hair. Jack followed him, dressed in dark brown leather.

“The House Meer is incoming in ten minutes,” I told them.

“Good.” George smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile.

The magic of the inn tugged on me. Something was happening in front of the building. I stepped to the window. In front of me the long stretch of Camelot Road rolled out before turning, and on the corner, half-hidden by the enormous prickly pear the Hendersons refused to trim, a police cruiser waited. Oh great.

“Problems?” George asked.

“Officer Marais’ intuition never fails.”

George glanced at his brother. Jack shrugged and pulled off his shirt, exposing a hard, muscled frame.

“Jack will take care of it,” George said.

That’s what I was afraid of. “Please don’t hurt him,” I said.

“The guy is ruining your life and you want me not to hurt him.” Jack’s pants followed. He kept going, and I kept my gaze firmly on his face.

“Officer Marais isn’t trying to ruin my life. He’s trying to do his job and keep the neighborhood safe.”

“Fine, fine.” The last shred of clothing landed on the floor. “I’ll be back in time for the fireworks.”

Jack stretched and then his body broke apart. Fur spilled out. For a moment he almost appeared to be suspended in midair, then his body twisted, crunched, knotted on itself, and a large lynx landed on my floor.

Okay. That was certainly interesting. What the hell was he? He wasn’t the Sun Horde, that’s for sure.

“Could you open the back door please?” George asked.

The back door swung open and the lynx shot out through the kitchen into the night. Something banged. A screech echoed through the inn.

“It is enough I put up with the dog. Must I have cat hair in my food as well?” Orro yelled.

He’d missed his calling. He should’ve become a Shakespearean actor instead.

Beast barked, clearly offended.

“My apologies.” I turned to the wall. “Screen please. Front camera feed, zoom in three hundred percent.”

A screen sprouted on the wall giving me a detailed view of Officer Marais’ car and its owner, leaning back in his seat.

Something thumped the cruiser. It rocked on its wheels.

Officer Marais sat up straight.

Another thump.

Another.

Officer Marais swung the door open and stepped out, illuminated by the glow of the nearby street lamp, one hand on his gun. He stepped around the car and checked its rear.

The crape myrtle bushes in the yard across the street rustled.

Officer Marais turned smoothly and stepped away from the car. The bushes rustled again, shivering, as something moved away from the car toward the street light.

Marais followed, his steps careful.

A lynx emerged from the bushes and sat on the pavement.

Officer Marais froze, his hand on his sidearm. His face told me he was calculating his odds. He’d walked too far from the car. If he turned and ran, the lynx would catch him.

Now what? If Jack attacked, Marais would fire, I had no doubt of it. “Your brother might get shot,” I warned.

“Jack is a man of many talents,” George said.

Well, that didn’t answer anything.

The lynx stretched, his paws out in front of him, turned, and flopped on the road on his back, like a playful house cat.

Some tension left Officer Marais’ stance. The line of his shoulders softened.

Jack rubbed his big head on the pavement and batted at the empty air with his paws.

“Hey there,” Marais said, his voice hesitant. “Who is a good cat?”

Jack rolled over, sauntered over to the nearest bush and rubbed his head on it.

“Good cat. You’re a big guy, huh. Did you escape from someone’s yard? People should have more sense than to own wild animals like that.” Officer Marais took a careful step back.

Jack whipped about. His furry butt pointed at Officer Marais, hit tail went up, and a jet of pressurized cat spray drenched Marais’ chest.

Oh no.

“Aaa!” Marais leaped back and jerked his gun up, but Jack had vanished as if he never was there.

“Sonovabitch!” Marais shook his left hand dripping with cat urine. “Damn it all to hell.”

His face stretched, as if he had just taken a gulp of sour milk.

He looked down on his chest and gagged. “Oh Jesus.”

Next to me Sophie clamped her hand over her mouth and made some strangled noises.

Marais tried to hold on to his composure.

His chin quivered. He gagged again, bent over, and dry heaved.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to feel bad.

“Oh sweet Jesus.”

Officer Marais straightened and marched to his car, his face contorted. The cruiser’s lights came on as the engine roared into life and the big car tore out of the neighborhood.

George smiled. “I told you – many talents.”

I stood on the edge of the landing field as a crimson drop fell from the sky and melted into thin air, leaving three vampires in its wake. Vampires got bigger and more grizzled with age, not taller or fatter, but bulkier, as their muscle gained more and more hard mass. The three knights before me were massive. Where Arland’s and Robart’s armors were works of art, the newcomers’ armor was a work of art designed to communicate the fact that its owner had a nearly unlimited budget. Ornate, customized to fit, it turned each of them from a living being into a mobile, lethal fortress. They stood there scowling and showing their fangs, and I had a strong feeling that this would not end well. The one in the front carried a huge axe. Behind him, on the left, a vampire with an old scar across his face brandished a blood mace, and his friend on the right, with hair so pale it looked almost white, had equipped himself with a sword that had a wickedly sharp, wide blade.