Clean Sweep has drawn to a close.  Chapter Sixteen Part 3 is the final installment.  We will be releasing Clean Sweep as an ebook in the next month or so and the published version will have an Epilogue.  The Epilogue is bitter sweet.  When we asked you if you were Team Sean or Team Arland, some of you said Team Dina.  We are Team Dina, too, and so you and Dina will have to wait until the sequel for the possible HEA.  That’s a part of the innkeeper’s life: guests leave and you, the readers, are leaving too, but hopefully not for long.

When will there be a sequel?  In a few months, hopefully before Christmas. We have a lot of deadlines, and we have to concentrate on them in the immediate future. Will it be posted online?  Probably.  We’re up for it if you are.

Thank you for everything.

We watched as Arland searched the dahaka’s armor. He found something, looked at it, and came to sit next to us. In his hands was a vampire’s crest. He showed it to me. “I activated it and sent a message. He’s coming.”

“He?” Sean asked.

“My cousin.”

“How did you know?” Sean asked.

“He’d opposed the Pact of Brotherhood. Nothing forceful, just a snide comment here and there, enough to let us know he wasn’t happy about it. Orig has poor impulse control. As a child, he got into fights for frivolous reasons. As an adolescent, he had to learn the hard way that women don’t enjoy being assaulted. He is at his best when he is set lose on the battlefield in the ranks, but in his mind, he is the Marshall. He spoke at the wake. It was all outrage and bluster and how we would find those responsible and make them regret ever crawling out of their mother’s womb. After the funeral I saw him standing by himself. I was above him on the terrace and he thought he was alone. He was smiling. I thought it was odd then. I had the House check his flight plans for the past six months. A month before the wedding, he’d taken a trip to Savva. The idiot had charged the House for the fuel. There is one in every family.”

Sean glanced at me.

“Savva is the mercenary capital of the Galaxy,” I told him. “If you wanted to hire a killer, that would be the place.”

Arland grimaced. “Now I’ll have to mop up his mess.”

“Now?” I asked.

He nodded. “I want to get this over with.”

“Don’t you want to heal up?” I asked.

“No, I don’t.” The way he said it made it clear he wanted the questions dropped.

We sat together, bleeding quietly onto the grass. I hurt in a half-a dozen places. Funny how in a fight I hadn’t noticed, but apparently, I was all cut up to hell. The inn could heal the magical injuries but not the physical ones. Well, this would cure me of going to look for trouble for a few weeks.

The screen door clanged. I turned around. Lord Soren, out of armor and limping, struggled forth. He crossed the property and lowered himself on the grass next to Arland. Arland nodded to him.

“Is there a precedent for outsiders serving as witnesses?”

“Yes,” Lord Soren said.

“Good,” Arland said.

The sky above us split. A bright red orb formed in the air and drained down in glowing waterfall of red, leaving three vampires on the grass. The tallest looked a lot like Arland. If they were human, I’d say the cousin was about six or seven years older, but with vampires, nobody could tell.

Arland rose and walked over. “Why?”

The vampire snarled back.

“Engage your translator,” Arland said. “My witnesses don’t speak our language.”

I leaned over to Lord Soren. “He’s not your son, is he?” Because that would be awful.

“No,” the older vampire said. “Other side of the family.”

His cousin fixed Arland with a glowing stare. “This alliance, this brotherhood you and your father dragged us into. It’s not good for anyone. We’ve had two years of peace. Two years of no raids, no challenges, and no glory. We’re going soft and stale. You don’t care, and I get that you don’t care. You have achieved your place, but the rest of us are not as lucky. Not everyone can be the golden son. Some of us have ranks to climb.”

“You had the exact same opportunities I did,” Arland said. “You didn’t rise through the ranks, because you’re an undisciplined idiot. You want to know my secret? Before you earn the right to give orders, you have to follow them. We were going to launch an joint offensive against House Lon this fall. The offensive is now dead. Congratulations, Orig. You single-handedly crushed three years of planning. You brought an outsider in to assassinate your own aunt, and you’ve permitted him to soil your crest. It will be years before we can wipe away the stench of your foul stain from our name.”

“And if I want a trial?” Orig asked.

Arland dropped his gauntlets on the grass. His breastplate followed. “You get a trial right here. You’re not going back to the House to grandstand and posture. I’m the Marshall of House Krahr. I’ve conducted my investigation. Here, before these witnesses, I find your guilty of treason. Defend yourself.”

Orig bared his teeth. “I will bury you on this planet.”

“Big words. Just try to die well. Don’t shame the House any further.”

They clashed. No weapons, just bare hands and teeth. It was short and brutal. I really wanted to close my eyes a couple of times, but I was a witness and so I watched, until Arland bit through the back of his cousin’s neck with his teeth. He shook his prey once, like a dog shakes a rat, and spat him out.

“Remove this filth.”

The two vampires who had arrived with Orig collected his body. Lord Soren lumbered to his feet and followed them. Arland wiped the blood from his lips.

“Aren’t you going with them?” Sean asked.

“I thought I would impose on you for just a little while longer,” Arland said to me. “I really would like to shower. And to brush my teeth. I need to get the taste of family out of my mouth.”

The day slowly burned down to an evening. I had set the kitchen timer and it told me it’d been exactly six hours and thirty five minutes since I planted the pearls. They would hatch in nineteen minutes.

In the foyer Arland sat on the loveseat, sipping mint tea. The vampire wore a full set of armor, the breastplate and the raised pauldrons made his shoulders and chest appear enormous. His weapon, a giant blood mace, lay next to him on the floor, its head solid black and crossed by glowing red lines.

Sean sat across from him in a chair, Beast curled by his feet. He wore sweatpants and a dark shirt. His feet bare feet rested on the floorboards. He planned to go into wetworks shape and he said boots hindered his mobility. Two large machetes rested next to him. Well, one was a machete. The other looked like a hybrid of a gladius, a short Roman sword, and an over-sized bowie knife.

“So the crosses don’t do anything?” Sean asked.

“No,” Arland said. “There is no mystical force repelling us.”

“Then why?”

“We’re forbidden to kill a creature in the moment of prayer or invocation of their deity. Well, we can, technically, but you have to do penance and purify yourself and nobody wants to spend weeks praying and bathing themselves in the sacred cave springs. The water’s is only a fraction warmer than ice. When one of you holds up a cross, it’s difficult to determine whether you’re praying, invoking, or just waving it around. So the sane strategy is to back away.”

“What about garlic?”

“That comes from gravediggers,” I told him. “When they exhumed bodies, they would wear garlands of garlic to keep from gagging.”

“Holy water?” Sean asked.

“That charming practice originated in Byzantium,” Arland said. “Your churches stored a lot of gold, so to keep the undesirables away, the priests had kept quicklime powder on hand. We’re positive there were other ingredients in the powder as well, but quicklime was present in abundance. They’d toss a handful of quicklime in your face and dump holy water on you. The water reacts with quicklime, igniting and turning extremely corrosive. But no, I’ve dipped my hand in your blessed water before and by itself, it does absolutely nothing.”

“Where did you get the holy water?” I asked.

“My cousin brought it as a souvenir. I did it on a dare. Logically of course I knew it wouldn’t melt my skin off, but one can never be certain.”

I pictured a bunch of teenage vampires standing around a basin. “You touch it.” “No, you touch it…” Of course, he would put his hand into it.

My timer went off.

“Is it that time?” Sean asked.

I nodded.

We went out the door. Sean carried a machete in each hand. Arland carried his mace. I carried my broom. The sun had set, but its wake still diluted the sky’s purple to pale yellow in the west. The moon rose, bright, huge, like a silver coin in the sky. The scent of grass and the weak aroma of burning wood from someone’s fire pit swirled around me. Noises came in clear: the faint sound of our feet, the distant barking of the dog, a siren somewhere far away… The world seemed so sharp somehow. I wore jeans during a Texas summer evening, and still I felt cold.

I really didn’t want to die.

“Fear is good,” Sean told me.

“Too much fear isn’t good,” Arland said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

Sean put his hand on my arm and stopped, letting Arland go forward a few steps. He leaned to me and said quietly. “Don’t count on him or on me. If things don’t go well, you turn around and run back to the house and let the inn guns blow that bastard to pieces if he follows. I left my parents’ number on your kitchen table. Call them if something happens. They will help.”

Two thoughts occurred at the same time: one said “If I could get the dahaka on the grounds, I wouldn’t need the guns” and the second said, “He worried enough to do this for me.” That last one cut right through the fear of impending death and freaked me the heck out.

There was no way on Earth I would be falling for Sean Evans. The list of his shortcomings was a mile long: arrogant, unstable, bossy, werewolf… I shut my brain off and made my lips move. “Thank you.”

Sean nodded.

We came to the edge of the field. The Anansi pearls had grown and broken through the soil, rising a few inches above the dirt, like the tops of giant mushrooms about to break free. Each of them should be the size of small tire now, but with most of their bulk buried it was hard to tell. I hoped they were done. Sometimes there were some minor variations due to temperature. The only way to know for sure would be to break one but once broken, they wouldn’t last long in Earth’s atmosphere.

Sean stared at the pearls.

Arland raised his eyebrows.

“You sure about this?” Sean asked me.

“Yes. My father used them before.”

Sean and Arland walked out into the field. I followed. The protective mantle of magic slid off me. I felt naked.

Arland took out his crest. His fingers danced over the surface. “It’s done. It’s broadcasting the signal of the person I think betrayed us.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” I said.

A minute passed. Another. The time slowed to a crawl. Funny how long a minute can last. If you’re reading a good book, it flies by. If you’re holding your breath, it moves slower than a snail.

“What if he doesn’t show?” I asked.

“He’ll show,” Sean said. “He wants to get paid.”

“And once he sees us, it will be a challenge,” Arland said.

We stood shoulder to shoulder. “Shouldn’t we have set some traps?” I asked.

“He’s too mobile,” Arland said. “He’d avoid whatever we set up and we’d stumble into our defenses in the fight. Besides, we are the trap.”

He and Sean had planted an energy disruptor a few hours ago. According to Arland, it would negate whatever energy weapons the dahaka carried, and apparently, dahakas didn’t care for projectile technology.

Sean raised his face to the moon. “Incoming. About two miles out.” He glanced at me. “Dina, remember, stick to the plan, no matter how hard it is. It’s a good plan and it will work.”

A shiver ran down his spine, like fire down a detonator cord. His skin split. Mist swirled around him. For a long moment his face remained human and then it too burst, bones growing, flesh stretching. His back expanded, layered with thick hard muscle. He raised his new massive arms covered with grey fur and held them out. The armor burst out of his pores, sheathing the body in a tight dark sleeve. Reinforced plates formed over his abdomen. Flexible darkness covered his massive neck. He pulled the clothes, ripping them of almost as an afterthought.

The armor sheathed him, dark like tar, but unlike glossy tar, it swallowed the moonlight. The black turned, twisted, lightened, and the pattern of grey and blue formed on its surface, matching the trees and the grass so exactly, he became practically invisible.

“Try to keep him still,” Sean-wolf said.

“Worry about yourself,” Arland said.

Sean nodded, sprinted across the clearing, and jumped up, scrambling up the tree. His armor shifted, adjusting and I could no longer see him.

A low murmuring growl, like a dozen voices speaking at once, rolled through the trees. The stalkers were coming.

“Just like we rehearsed,” Arland said and walked over to the side.

“I remember,” I told him.

Pale eyes ignited at the other end of the clearing. Thin shapes dashed through the trees.

“No fear,” Arland said.

One says be afraid, the other says don’t be afraid. Perfect.

The first stalker emerged into the moonlight, an ugly, alien thing. It sniffed the air tentatively and looked at me.

Arland stood perfectly still.

More stalkers joined the first, condensing from the twilight. Wow. I didn’t expect this many. Fear squirmed through me.

The lead stalker dipped his head, unsure. Behind the horde, a dark shape rose, taller and standing on two legs. The dahaka.

Stalkers were predators. Like dogs, like cats, like bears, they all reacted to the same behavior. It was an instinctual reaction and we counted on it.

I turned and ran.

The growls behind me raised the hair on the back of my neck, whipping me into frenzy. I dashed across the field. The noise behind me swelled. They chased me.

I shot through the inn boundary, sending the magic in front of me in a wide fan. The tops of the Anansi pearls cracked in unison.

I spun around, the broom in my hand shifting into a halberd.

More than half of the stalkers ran across the field in a ragged wave, ignoring Arland. The rest lingered at the edge of the field.

The dahaka strode out of the trees. If he called them back now, it was all over. Both Arland and Sean didn’t think he would – he would want to take me out before I reached the inn and turned its defenses on him.

Red lines ignited in Arland’s armor. The blood mace whined, priming.

The dahaka roared, the remaining stalkers echoing his voice.

Arland snarled back, a primal harsh challenge.

The stalkers were almost on me.

The tops of the pearls pulsated. Please be ripe, please be ripe…

Arland trotted forward, like a tank that was trying to build up speed.

The first stalker crossed the boundary. I let it come.

It leaped at me. I spun my halberd and sliced across its ribs. White blood flew. The stalkers howled in unison and sped up. That’s right. Come closer.

The injured stalker whirled and fell, as the tree roots wrapped around his body and throat.

Beyond the mass of stalkers, the dahaka charged out of the trees and struck at Arland.

The stalkers mobbed me. I cut the first, then the second, spinning the halberd around me, playing for time. Claws carved my leg. Someone ripped at my back. Now.

The ground gave under the stalkers, sucking them in. It wouldn’t hold but for a few seconds. That would have to be enough.

The tops of the Anansi pearls burst. Spiders, as big as my fist, their backs glowing with electric green poured out of the eggs. They swarmed the stalkers. Their jaws punctured flesh, injecting lethal poison. The stalkers screeched in unison as their tissue began to liquefy.

In the field Arland and the dahaka clashed. The alien dwarfed the vampire, towering a whole foot above Arland’s head. Arland wasn’t slow, but the dahaka was so fast. He snarled, turning back and worth, slicing at Arland with a short blue blade. The blows rained on the vampire, but he stood his ground. The stalkers snapped and lunged at him, their claws sliding off his armor.

A chunk of Arland’s armor fell to the ground, wet with blood.

The vampire grunted, teeth bared. His mace connected with the dahaka’s shoulder. The impact threw the dahaka back. He stumbled and charged. Arland barced himself. The alien turned, whipping his tail. The massive tail smashed into Arland, staggering him to the side.

“Faster,” I whispered to the Anansi’s children. “Kill faster.”

They didn’t understand my word, but they understood my tone. The spiders fed faster, gorging themselves. The stalkers inside the inn boundary convulsed, moaning. There was nothing I could do until the stalkers were dead. Both Sean and Arland stressed to me that this was my part of the plan and it was essential I killed them all.

Another chunk of armor flew from Arland. The dahaka was carving him out of it, piece by piece.

Where the hell was Sean? Come on. He wouldn’t chicken out. He just couldn’t.

Arland took another tail hit on the side. His head hung. He shook it, slowly, as if dazed.

“Faster,” I pushed the spiders. If I moved without them, I’d lose control of the swarm. They would live just long enough to fill Avalon subdivision with lifeless husks of its inhabitants. “Hurry.”

The dahaka spun around the vampire like a bladed whirlwind. Blood drenched Arland’s armor. He gasped. The dahaka carved across the back of his legs. Arland went down on one knee.

The largest of the spider fell on its side. Its legs jerked spasmodically and became still. I had pushed them too far too fast. Damn it.

I strode across the boundary and the swarm of spiders followed me, intoxicated by my magic. Behind me the last of the stalkers sank softly to the ground, dry husks of their former selves.

The dahaka barked a short command. The remaining stalkers charged at me.

The alien swung his blade, aiming for Arland’s bowed head.

I ran. The spiders surged forward, heading for the alien and washed over the stalkers.

Three things happened at once: the dahaka struck, bringing his blade down, Arland spun out of the way, and a lean shadow appeared behind the dahaka as if by magic and sank a sword into his spine.

The alien screamed. Sean sliced at him, cutting and slashing with his swords. The dahaka counter-attacked with brutal fast cuts, but Sean was too fast. The assassin’s sword whistled through the air.

The two spiders by my feet cringed and fell over. One by one my spider horde began to die.

Arland rose to his feet, suddenly fast and limber, and smashed the dahaka’s side with his mace. Together the werewolf and the vampire began pushing the dahaka. The blood mace whirred and struck home and for every blow of Arland’s weapon, Sean landed two or three cuts. The dahaka fought back with vicious fury. Blood sprayed, and I no longer could tell whose. They kept pressing him, driving him across the clearing toward me.

He should’ve been disabled by now. That was the plan. But he danced back and forth, fully mobile. At any moment, he could break away and run, and we would have to chase him. Neither I nor Arland would be fast enough. The dahaka was outnumbered and wounded. He was losing and he knew it. I could feel him teetering on the brink of a decision. If he ran, it would be all over.

I melted my halberd in a bundle of blue filaments. It spiraled around my hands and waist, and stretched down, sinking deep into the ground behind me. I sent my magic down through it. My power streamed from me like electric current through the wire, back into the inn forging a connection.

I cried out. It was a small scared noise.

The dahaka spun and saw me, standing alone and weaponless outside the inn’s boundary, my spiders dead around me. The purple eyes gleamed. In the split second he stared at me, I saw the calculation plain in those alien eyes. Sean pressed him from one side and Arland from the other. I was the only possible exit. He could maim me in passing or grab me and use me as a hostage, and either way the two men would abandon their pursuit and concentrate on helping me. It was a win-win scenario.

The dahaka whipped around and charged at me.

Sean chased him, but the alien moved too fast.

I stood still. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

The dahaka came toward me, fast, unstoppable, like a train flying off the rails.

I spread my arms and leaned forward, bringing them together, my fingers reaching for him. All of my power, everything that made me an innkeeper, moved with me. Behind me the house creaked, mimicking my movement. Every tree branch, every blade of grass, and every stray root reached forward with me. Wind bathed the dahaka, like a breath of a giant clearing his lungs just before he inhaled. The alien spun around in a desperate rush to get away. Sean cut at him, but the alien batted him aside. For a second the way to his escape looked clear and then Arland drove his massive shoulder into the dahaka, knocking him toward me.

I straightened and pulled the empty air with both hands. The wind roared, as the entire inn pulled with me. The dahaka howled, straining to resist the storm made just for him. His feet sank into the soil. He dropped down to all fours, clawing at the dirt, screeching in pure terror.

We pulled trying to drag him in to the inn.

The dahaka slid across the grass straight to me. Somehow he flipped and leaped straight up at me, claws out, teeth bared. The filaments bristled like narrow javelins and shot from me, piercing him in a dozen places. The dahaka howled, suspended in mid-air, flailing like a fish on a hook. Behind him Sean leaped ten feet up and severed the dahaka’s head with one precise blow.

It rolled to my feet. The purple fire went out of the alien’s eyes.

My knees buckled and I sat into the grass. It reached to me, rubbing against me, like a cat arching its back, eager for a stroke.

We won.

The vampire saw Sean. His eyes narrowed. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Sean told him.

Arland studied him. “You look different. You look larger.” He inhaled. “And your scent has changed. Something did happen.”

Something happened alright. Sean hadn’t said another word after we left the shop. He did look larger, better defined, as if he’d gained about ten pounds of muscle and it all went to the right places. His eyes, more amber than brown now, looked into the distance. He was wandering somewhere inside his head and antagonizing him right now wasn’t wise. Somehow I didn’t think that he’d respond with werewolf poetry. He kept shrugging his shoulders as if he wanted to test them out.

“What are you reading?”

“Just some minor social research,” Arland said.

Okay. “Did the battlefield meet with your approval?”

“It will suffice. Have you acquired your weapons?”

“I’m going to go for a run.” Sean opened the back door and went outside.

I moved to the window. Sean was standing in the grass, looking up at the sky.

Arland’s eyebrows crept together. “Should I be concerned?”

“Probably not.” I had no idea. In my book, putting on alien suits that bonded with your body wasn’t wise. But Sean was a grown man, and there wasn’t anything I could’ve done about it. I had no idea what the side effects of this stunt would be.

Sean shrugged his shoulders again and took off, dashing into the trees. A moment and he vanished completely from view.

Here is hoping he came back in one piece.

“Lady Dina,” Arland said.

I turned to him. “Dina, please.”

“Dina.” Arland leaned back and presented me with a dazzling smile, his fangs on display.

Uh-oh. Perhaps keeping “lady” in front of my name would’ve been more wise.

He rose and walked over to me. I used to read an action series about a former military detective who was almost six and a half feet tall. I never quite comprehended how tall that was, but Arland had just given me a very good idea.

“Do you need to make any preparations?” Arland stopped next to me and leaned his forearm against the wall, looking out of the window. “If so, how long they will take?”

“Six hours and fifty two minutes,” I said. That was the standard time for the pearls to mature once planted.

“Will you be comfortable with fighting tonight?” he asked.

“Yes.” This was the weirdest conversation.

Arland nodded. “Dina…”

“Yes?”

“This entire affair has many components in it. Pride, revenge, betrayal… All very important.” He turned and looked at me with his dark blue eyes. “I’m honor and duty bound to resolve this. The future of my House depends on it. I don’t know what Sean’s motivations are beyond territoriality and I don’t know if I can rely on him. But no matter what my commitments are, I will promise you this: your safety is my first priority. I wish you had chosen to remain behind.”

“Because I am a woman?” I asked quietly.

“Because you will be the only person in that fight who hasn’t been trained as a killer. I have seen my mother and my grandmother on the battlefield. Any vampire with half a mind knows better than to stand between a woman and her chosen target. When a man takes up arms, he does this for many reasons. Sometimes to punish, sometimes to intimidate or frighten. But when a woman picks up a weapon, she means to kill. So please do not take this as an insult.”

He leaned toward me. Suddenly the space between us shrank. His voice was quiet and intimate.

“I will do everything in my power to ensure your survival and should the need arise, I will put myself between danger and you. Do not hesitate to use me as your shield.”

His voice sent tiny shivers through me.

Wow. He was something else.

Arland smiled again, showing me his fangs. Vampires smiled for many reasons, but when a vampire male smiled at you from this distance with that kind of look in his eyes it was done for one purpose only: to impress. Look at my big teeth. I’m an apex predator. My genetic material is awesome.

I had to say something. “I’ll keep that in mind. Now if you excuse me, I have some preparations to make.”

I went outside, pulled the cart out with my magic, and started toward the clearing. The cart rolled behind me.

No, this wouldn’t do. I had to keep at least some semblance of normality and I was getting sloppy. Appearing normal even when nobody who mattered could see us was how we kept up our disguise for so long. I sighed, circled the cart, and put my hands on the handles.

Vampires have been hitting on me since I was about fifteen. Mostly vampire boys. Vampires, as a species, lived to conquer. Their cultural identity was wrapped up around challenges, and both male and female vampires went after their targets with single-minded precision. As the daughter of the innkeepers, I was off limits and therefore irresistible. Nothing ever came of it, and I was used to it by now, but something about Arland, the way he looked at me, or the way he smiled, sent a shiver of alarm through me. It wasn’t unpleasant, which was troubling.  Being involved with the Marshall of a Holy Anocracy House wasn’t on my agenda. They didn’t do “involved.” They only did total and complete victory.  I had to nip this in the bud.

Where could Sean have gotten off to? If that suit strangled him, and now he lay dying somewhere, I wouldn’t even know. Idiot werewolf.

I reached the edge of clearing. Here the short stocky trees parted to encircle a clear field. The boundary of the inn ended about twelve feet ahead. I turned it into a narrow shovel and looked at the dirt. I thrust the broom-shovel into the ground. The hole grew around it, wider, deeper…

Little more.

Hmm. About a foot deep should do it.

Okay, good enough.

I turned and almost walked into Sean. His face was slicked with a faint sheen of sweat. His cloak was gone. He wore a T-shirt that left his arms bare and the same damp sheen covered the carved muscle of his biceps. He stared at my face, his eyes so light, they almost glowed. I looked into them and saw the wolf looking right back at me.

Every cell in my body went on full alert. My broom sprouted a blade.

Sean smiled, a feral grin, like a wolf panting. “Dina.” He practically purred.

“Are you okay?”

He glanced at my broom, amused. “What are you doing here, all alone?”

This was reminding me of Red Riding Hood. If he asked what was in my basket, he would regret it. “I’m not alone. I have my broom.”

He leaned forward, closing the six inches between us. The dark tattoo designs slid up and down his neck and chest. The wolf in the eyes beckoned.

Oh no. No, no, no. We are not going there, into those dark woods.

I touched the tip of my spear to the underside of his chin. The heat coming off his skin warmed my hand.

“Ooh.” He wrinkled his nose at me. “Sharp.”

“I think your new outfit got you a little too excited.” I began to pool the magic under him.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said.

“What?”

He pushed my spear aside with his fingers and bent down. His hand slid into my hair. His mouth closed on mine.

Kissing Sean Evans was like drinking a shot of the strongest liquor while it was on fire.

His tongue touched my lips, stroking, teasing, not attacking, but seducing; confident, but subtle. Excitement shot through me like an electric shock and some sort of vital switch in my brain malfunctioned, fried by the burst of need. I opened my mouth and let him in, our bodies perfectly in tune. He wanted me and I kissed him back.

We broke apart. My body was hot, my head was dizzy. The wolf eyes laughed at me. He looked like he was about to repeat that.

Sean leaned forward.

I pushed. The ground under him yawned and he sank into it up to his hips.

He grinned. “Was it that good for you?”

I dropped him another eighteen inches.

Sean laughed.

“You’re interfering with my work. Don’t make me bury you.”

“If you bury me, you’ll have to dig me up.”

“Maybe I’ll just leave you in the ground.”

I made another hole, took a pearl, which was about the size of a honeydew melon, from the cart and slid it into the soil.

“Why?” he asked.

“You will see tonight.” I made another hole and planted the next pearl into it. “That suit has gone to your head.”

“It’s not the suit, buttercup.”

“I don’t do pet names.”

“Do you do werewolves?”

“Okay, I’m not talking to you anymore. I’m going to plant the rest of these, and, if you stay very quiet, I might find a drop of compassion in my heart and dig you out before you sprout roots.”

He grinned and strained.  Muscles bulged on his chest.

“Very impressive, but—“

Sean shot out of the hole and took off into the trees.

Whoa.

I tracked him with my magic. He was running like a madman, bouncing up and down off the trees.

First Arland, now him. Was it something in the air? Maybe fighting the dahaka got them all excited. I didn’t know and quite frankly I didn’t care. I wanted to kill the dahaka and to send both of them home.

Dahaka… Thinking about the fight opened this gaping hole in my stomach that refused to close.  Maybe the two of them thought they were going to die and this was their chance to go out strong.  I really hoped not.

It was a nice kiss.  Very… memorable.

If he came near me with that look again, I’d hit him upside the head and claim self-defense. No jury in the world would convict me.

“Gorvar!” the older werewolf growled.

An enormous blue-green animal padded through the other door. His head with massive ears and thick dark mane came up to my chest. The lines of its head and the long body said wolf, but the difference between an Earth wolf and this creature was like the difference between a puppy and the leader of a pack. On our world, he would be the king of all wolves.

Beast opened her mouth and showed him her teeth.

The wolf ignored her.

“Go watch the cart,” the werewolf said.

The wolf padded out the door.

The older werewolf took a glass cup filled with small round spheres about the size of walnut from the counter, plucked one out, and held it between his index finger and thumb. “Know what these are?”

“No.”

“Cluster bombs.”

The werewolf gently placed the sphere back in the glass, looked at cup, and hurled the contents at Sean.

Time stopped.

My chest began to rise as my lungs sucked in air in panic.

The shiny glass spheres flew through the air.

Sean moved, a blur slicing through the room like a knife.

Some invisible omnipotent being pressed play on the remote. I exhaled and blinked. Sean’s left hand held the spheres. His right pressed a knife to the older werewolf’s throat.

The older man raised his hand slowly and checked his wrist. Blue symbols glowed under his skin.

“Point six seconds. You are the real thing.” He grinned, baring white teeth. “The real thing.”

“I think you might be crazy,” Sean said.

“You have no idea how amazing it is that you’re alive. Sorry about the scare. They’re not armed. No detonators. I just had to know.” The werewolf took a sphere from Sean’s hand and tossed it on the ground. It rolled harmlessly on the floor boards. “I sell them as souvenirs. Own a piece of tech from the dead planet. The tools of our own destruction available for twenty credits each to a discerning shopper.”

He smiled and took a slow step back. Sean let him go and dropped the knife back onto the counter. I hadn’t even seen him pick it up.

The older werewolf crossed the shop, slid open a panel in the wall and took out a glass pitcher filled with dark purple liquid.

“Go ahead, look around. This is as close as you will come to Auul. Like it or not, this was the planet that breathed life into your parents. Your heritage.”

Sean slid the spheres back into the cup, turned, scanning the surroundings. He looked like a man who’d just found out his much admired ancestor was a serial killer and was now standing in his tomb unsure how he felt about it.

“Name is Wilmos Gerwar 7-7-12,” the older werewolf said, adding three ornate glasses to the pitcher. “Seventh Pack, Seventh Wolf, Twelfth Fang. Gerwar stands for Medic.”

“No last name?” I asked.

“No. Used to be more complicated than that. Used to be you had a tribe and would list your ancestors for four generations after your name. But when the war started, it was decided that short was best. Besides, it didn’t matter much who you were anymore. People died so fast, it only mattered what you did. I was the thirty second Gerwar in my Fang. It was a long war.”

Wilmos took the glasses and the pitcher to a small table and invited me to sit. I slid onto the padded bench. Beast curled by my feet. Wilmos filled the glasses and pushed one toward Sean.

“No thanks,” Sean said.

Wilmos took a swallow from his glass. “This is Auul tea. I know a former Boom-Boom – that would be heavy artillery gunner – who owns land in Kentucky. He’s got five acres of this stuff. Exports it to half dozen dealers, what few of us are left in the Galaxy. I wouldn’t poison you. And I would never poison an innkeeper.” He held the glass out to me. “We all need a refuge once in a while.”

I took a sip. The tea tasted tart and refreshing and strangely alien. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was a hint of something not quite Earth-like about the flavor.

Sean took the third chair and tasted the tea. I couldn’t tell by his face if he liked it or hated it. His gaze kept going to a spot in the corner. There under the blue glow of a small forcefield lay a suit of armor. Dark grey, almost black, it looked like a chainmail made of small sharp scales, if chainmail could be thin like silk. On the shoulders, the scales flared into the plates. The feint image of a maned wolf marked the chest, somehow formed by the lines of the interlocking scales. It looked like a suit of armor, but it couldn’t possibly be one – it was too thin.

“I’m fourth generation,” Wilmos said. “My parents were werewolves and their parents and theirs were also. When I was young, I never thought I’d have to serve. We had beaten Mraar. I was looking toward a peaceful future. I was a nanosurgeon. Then the Raoo of Mraar reconstructed the ossai and made the Sun Horde. Damn cats. Our secret weapon was no longer secret and we knew the end was coming. It would be long and bloody, but it was inevitable. Most people turned to work on the gates. I was working on those who would keep the gates open.”

He drained his glass and refilled it. “There were two dozen of us, geneticists, surgeons, medics. We bred the alphas from scratch. Anybody ever call you probira?”

“No,” Sean said. His gaze darkened. “Maybe. Once.”

“Before the war, Mraar’s main export was cybernetics. You know what Auul’s was? Poets.” Wilmos laughed. “We were big on arts and humanities. It was all about family and proper education. Our civilization had produced thousands of books on how to properly rear your offspring so they would become ‘a beautiful soul.’ If a child hadn’t composed a heroic saga by age ten, the parents would take them to a specialist to have his head examined. Even in war, we’d win a victory and then spend twice as much energy writing songs about it. Moon gazing and self searching was highly encouraged. When I was a little younger than you, I spent a year alone in the wild.  Only took a knife and a canteen.  I felt like I was too soft and wanted to see if I could be hard.  Almost like I needed to punish myself, you understand?”

Sean nodded.  I guess maybe he did. I never had an urge to live in the wilderness by myself, so he was on his own there.

“Things like that weren’t uncommon.  They called it looking for your soul.  Very poetic. Your parents were conceived and brought to term in artificial environment. What’s the saying on Earth?” He glanced at me.

“Test tube babies.”

“Yes. That. We’ve tried implanting embryos into volunteers, but the new modifications were simply too different. We had re-engineered the ossai, and this new, improved alpha ossai conflicted with the ossai already inside the surrogate mothers. When we were lucky, the pregnancy ended in miscarriage. When we weren’t, it killed the mother.” He paused. “There were those who had serious doubts about the wisdom of growing babies outside the womb. They questioned their… humanity.”

Sean’s face turned hard. “What does probira mean?”

“Soulless,” Wilmos said.

Ouch.

Sean nodded. “I thought as much.”

So that’s why the other werewolves shunned them. Made sense.

“They called us the monster makers. Parents of sub humans. There was a lot of discussion if it would be better to perish than to chance releasing something soulless into the Universe. But in the end everyone agreed that we needed alphas or none of us would make it. For all of our grandstanding, we are a selfish lot. Nobody expected alphas to survive. Or breed. I always had hope.”

“Why?” Sean asked.

Wilmos leaned on the table. “I was with them until they were five. I watched them smile for the first time. I helped them take their first steps. They are as real and alive as any normal children.   A soul, if such a thing exists at all, doesn’t filter into you at birth through your mother’s umbilical cord.  Soul come from the people around who shape you as you grow.  The alphas were children.  My children.  And I took care of them the best I could. All of us on the team did and all the while we knew we would be sending them to the slaughter. They would be the last line of defense. Bullet meat.”

Wilmos shrugged and smiled. It looked forced. “As I said, we tend to brood. It was a long time ago. We all made sacrifices. You never told me who your parents were.”

“You don’t need to know that,” Sean said.

“Good,” Wilmos said. “No need to share secrets if you don’t have too. That’s a winning strategy. At least tell me what you do. What they do? Were they able to adjust? How did you childhood go?”

“Both of my parents joined the Earth’s military,” Sean said. “They did well and retired. My father is a lawyer. My mother helps him. They are almost never apart. They like books and violent computer games. They go fishing, but don’t catch anything. They just sit together with their fishing rods and talk. I didn’t understand what they got out of it until much later, after I enlisted and realized it was their off mode, and it used to drive me nuts when I was a kid. I thought they were boring. I had a normal childhood, or as normal as you can get being an Army brat and a werewolf. Lots of sports, lots of moving. My parents live simply, but I was a spoiled kid. I had all the cool toys and all the right clothes. I could’ve gone to college, but instead I enlisted. I didn’t feel like I belonged where I was and I wanted to be on my own. Also I was angry at my parents, why I don’t even know. For providing me with a comfortable life, I suppose. I was going stir crazy and felt entitled to some tragedy to be bummed out about, but I didn’t have any.

“I did eight years, several small conflicts, and one war. Army was easy. Be where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there and do as you’re told. I was the fastest and the strongest.  I killed people, sometimes at close range.  I don’t love it, but I don’t lose much sleep over it either. It was a job and I was very good at it. I liked being in. It took the edge off and I felt normal. I got promoted quickly, E5 in three years, E6 in five.  The Army provides you with a place to sleep, feeds you, outfits you. If you don’t have a family and don’t care about the latest car with the shiniest rims, not much opportunity to spend the money.  I put away half of my paycheck since day one and once a year I would go to places the Army didn’t send me.  I’ve been on six continents out of seven, and the seventh is a frozen wasteland.  I kept looking for the place that felt right and none of them ever did.  Two years into my E6, they started pushing me to E7, Sergeant First Class.  It’s almost always an admin job. E6 was as high as I could go and still stay with the soldiers.  I knew if they chained me to a desk, I’d go off the cliff.

“I fought them on it as long as I could, and when I couldn’t anymore, I finished out my time and got out. Once I had gotten to my permanent duty station, a buddy and I went in together on a restaurant. Nothing fancy, just a good solid lunch place that served Korean food. It had a good location and it did well. When I got out, it had two other location and was turning into a small chain. My buddy bought me out. With what I put away and the buyout, I had about five years or so to figure out what I wanted to do. Thought about going private, but I’d worked with contractors before and I don’t like it. Something rubs me the wrong way about the soldier-for-hire gig. I’ve gone through Texas a few times, and I enjoyed it. So I picked a small town, bought a decent house, and tried being a civilian to see how long I would last. And then some alien piece of shit came into my territory and started killing.  There we are.”

That was the longest I’ve ever heard him speak. It must’ve been rough to keep looking and looking and never finding that right spot, that place that said home.

“Even a generation later, with all the opportunities in the world, still a soldier. The genetic programming held in the next generation.” Wilmos studied him. “They didn’t tell you about Auul?”

Sean shook his head.

Wilmos sighed. “I can’t say I blame them.”

He turned to me.

“Are those Anansi Pearls in your cart?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going up against?”

“A dahaka,” I said. Why not? Maybe he knew something about it.

“A nasty breed. Need all ammunition you can get.”

He glanced at Sean. Sean was looking at the corner again, at the scale armor.

“Why don’t you take a closer look?” Wilmos said.

Sean rose and walked over to the armor. “What is it?”

“Raroon Twelve. Stealth armor, made specifically for alphas.”

“It looks…” I searched for the right word.

“Flimsy?” Wilmos nodded. “It’s nano armor. Meant to fit under your skin. Once you put it on, it never comes off. Every alpha wore some version of it. They used to say, you don’t wear the armor, the armor wears you. It’s designed to change with your body, any form, any shape. Ever seen you mother or your father show tattoos on the neck when they’re upset?”

Sean nodded. “Sure.”

“Then you know when the tattoos show, you’re in trouble. It’s an instinctual response. When you’re angry or threatened, the armor expands to cover vulnerable areas. It’s calling you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sean said.

“Is it for sale?” I asked.

“No.  But it can be had.” Wilmos smiled at Sean. “If you want it, it’s yours.  I have no use for it.  But sometime in the future I may call on you for a favor, alpha. That time may never come or it may come tomorrow.”

Sean thought about it.

“Take it,” Wilmos said. “It’s a good trade.”

“No. It’s a bad idea.” He would never take it. Not in a million years He didn’t trust Wilmos and it was a sucker’s deal…

Sean held out his hand. “You’ve got a deal.”

Wilmos shook it. “Good. Take your shirt off. We’ll get it on.”

“Sean…” I said.

He looked at me. “I don’t know why, but I have to have it. I can’t stop myself.”

“It’s a built-in compulsion,” Wilson said. “Don’t worry, once it’s on, the feeling will pass.”

“If it’s a compulsion, it might not be a good idea,” I told him.

“I know,” Sean said. His eyes were open wide, his pupils so large that his irises looked completely black.

“It will be useful to you. I promise.” Wilmos said. “You’ll feel better.”

He turned off the forcefield. Sean stepped forward, pulled off his shirt, and touched the shiny scales. The metal melted, wrapping around his fingers. Thin streaks of grey slid around his arm, like metal snakes, over the shoulders, over his chest… The metal expanded, coating him, and broke apart into a thousand tiny metal dots. For a second nothing happened, then the dots moved as one, piercing Sean’s skin.

He screamed, a guttural brutal shout that turned into a roar.

His back arched, his shoulders gaining bulk. His flesh whipped around him in a flurry whirwind and a huge werewolf stood in Sean’s place. I had forgotten how huge he was.

Wilmos blinked. “That’s one hell of a wetworks shape.”

The werewolf-Sean growled, displaying huge teeth.

“Feel the armor move through you,” Wilmos said. “Let it bond. It will make you stronger. You should feel some feedback right away but the complete merger will take time. Give it twenty four hours and it will be in your bones.”

Sean turned. Armored plates formed under his skin on his chest, guarding his pectorals and the flat ridges of his stomach. The armor melted and the bulk of it shifted to his shoulders, forming pauldrons. His neck thickened. He snarled. The fur vanished, his body slimmed down in a blink and human Sean was back. Swirls of dark blue-gray pigment crisscrossed his chest and stomach like tiger stripes. He looked down on himself. The pigment moved.

“That’s it,” Wilmos said. “Shape it.”

The pigment melted and turned into a tribal design that covered most of Sean’s torso. It wrapped around his ribs, flowed onto his back, and settled.

Sean exhaled.

“And now you’re ready for battle. Good luck, soldier,” Wilmos said.

A low table, carved from a solid block of volcanic glass, stood to the left, surrounded by comfortable dark-purple sofas. Saar Ah led us to it, smiled, showing her shark teeth, and went to stand by the wall. We both remained standing.

“What is she?” Sean asked me quietly.

“I’ve seen her people a couple of times, but they are reclusive and usually keep to their own world. I can tell you that to be Saar Ah to a Merchant, she would have to be really good. There are hundreds of vendors at the Baha-char, but only a few dozen of them are Merchants. Merchants handle significant transactions and to become one, you have to have a fleet and show a lot of profit. Some of them specialize in large shipments, some like Naan Cee, deal in rare goods. Basically, if you want something you can’t readily buy on the street because it’s hard to find or you need in a large quantity, you go to a Merchant.”

“Anything I need to know about this particular Merchant?” Sean asked.

“Naan Cee is vain, fussy, and difficult.” I glanced at Saar Ah. “Anything I left out?”

A flash of shark teeth. “Excitable.”

“That too. He is also rich and very respected and if he can’t get what you’re looking for, than you’re asking for impossible.” Chances were, Naan Cee was listening to us and a little flattery never hurt.

The gauzy lavender and blue curtain on the right parted, and a creature stepped into the view. He walked upright, but stood barely four feet tall, including the six-inch lynx ears. Short silver-blue fur covered his frame like soft velvet, dappled with pale golden rosettes on her back and fading to an almost white on his stomach. His face could’ve been feline, if it wasn’t for an elongated muzzle that resembled the fox snout. He wore a silk apron and jewelry made from small cream and blue shells. His large round eyes were bright with vivid turquoise irises.

He smiled at me, showing sharp teeth. “Dina. Come sit, sit, sit.”

We sat.

He glanced at Sean. “I see you have finally employed Saar Ah.”

“He is a friend,” I told him. “I don’t need a bodyguard. I am not important like the great Naan Cee.”

The Merchant smiled. “I do like to converse with you. You are always most pleasant.” His furry face turned somber. “Have you news of your parent figures?”

“No.”

He nodded. “I have kept my ear to the wind but there are no answers, only whispers too vague to sense. Should I hear something, I shall send word.”

That word would be expensive and I would pay for it, whatever the price would be.

“So how can this humble trader help you today?”

“I’m looking to purchase a clutch of Anansi Pearls.”

Naan Cee leaned forward. His eyes shine with predatory glee. His lips parted, revealing carnivore fangs in a disturbing smile. “Ooooh. You’re going to kiiill someone. Who is it? Is it someone I know?”

“Probably not.”

He laughed, like a cat sneezing and waved his paw-hands. “Very good, very good, keep your secrets, keep, keep. Now then, what have you brought in trade?”

I’ve brought a couple of things. My parents had traded with Naan Cee before. I’d watched them make deals since I was a toddler. Things like gold and jewels meant nothing to a rare goods trader. After all, gold was just a metal that could be found on hundreds of worlds. Naan Cee wanted something unique and rare. Something wrapped in legend. And to pay for Anansi Pearls, that something had to be very special.

Sean passed me the backpack. I unzipped it and pulled out three large bottles. Each had a yellow label with a portrait of an older man smoking a cigar. “Pappy Van Winkle’s 15-year-old Family Reserve bourbon. Best small batch bourbon in show at San Francisco’s World Spirits. Nearly impossible to get.”

As an opening trade, it wasn’t half-bad. It took me forever to get the bourbon and I knew for a fact that Naan Cee kept up with alcohol trade on dozens of planets. This was my proof that I could procure something rare.

Naan Cee leaned forward, enthusiastic. “Interesting. Four pearls. Five for you. Your parent figures always brought me the best things and I will be generous in their memory.”

He wanted the bourbon, but not nearly enough. It was time for the real thing.  Here is hoping it did its job well enough.

I reached into the backpack and extracted a small jar wrapped in bubble wrap. I peeled the wrap off and set the jar on the table. Naan Cee peered at the viscous yellow fluid within.

“What would this be?”

“A treasure.” I leaned forward and moved the jar. The ray of sun from the window pierced the contents and the liquid glowed like molten gold.

Naan Cee’s eyes sparked.

“Far to the south, near the equator, lies a sea, a pure crystalline blue. At its north edge, where two continents touch, stretches an arid plain. As one moves further from the water, the plain rises and turns into barren hills and desolate mountains. Between the mountains hide wadis, narrow fertile valleys, secreted from the world. It is an ancient land, named after a ruthless warlord. Legend says he was so devastating in battle that his enemies knew facing them meant the end of their existence. They called this place Hadramout. It means ‘death has arrived.’”

Naan Cee was listening.

“Twice a year simple artisans make the arduous trek through these mountains as their ancestors have done for seven thousand years. They climb the secret trails to the east, toward the rising sun, until they come to the valley where the sidr trees grow. The sidr are sacred to many religions. Muslims know them as trees of Paradise. Christians believe that when Man was cast from the Garden of Eden by God, it was the fruit of the sidr tree that first gave him sustenance. Its roots dig deep into the soil, so far it can survive the most ferocious floods. Every part of the tree is medicinal, every leaf is precious. But the artisans take none of it. Carefully, gingerly, they harvest the honey from the bees that feed on the pollen of those trees and make their long perilous journey back. The sidr honey they bring with them cures many ills. It is the essence of that ancient, savage land. It’s very lifeblood. There is none more rare or higher prized.”

Naan Cee looked at the jar.

“Twelve,” he said.

I rose. “My apologies. I hadn’t realized that great Naan Cee has fallen on hard times. Forgive me. I meant no offense.”

Naan Cee hissed at the insult. I reached for the jar.

“Twenty,” he barked.

I pondered the jar in front of me. It felt like walking a tight rope. If the deal fell through, I had no idea where to go next. “I’m in great need. That’s the only reason I’m willing to part with it. I bargain for my life, Merchant. You know my price.”

“Thirty two,” he said. “The full clutch. It is my final offer.”

I waited for the painful five seconds. “We have a deal.”

Twenty minutes later we left Naan Cee’s warehouse pushing a heavy cart in front of us. Inside in sealed crates, rested the Anansi Pearls. Thirty two. Enough to murder a battalion of Navy Seals. Maybe two.

“Do Navy Seals have battalions?” I asked.

“No.  Seals have teams, which are organized into warfare groups. Each team has several platoons in it, usually six. Army has battalions. Was any of that story true?”

“About the honey? Yes. It’s the most expensive honey in the world and it’s harvested in Yemen.”

He grunted. “How much did it set you back?”

“That jar he has is one kilo, so about two point two pounds. It goes for about $90 a pound. With shipping, it ends up being around $250 per large jar. Of course, you have to know where to buy the real thing…”

Sean stared at me.

“What?”

“Two hundred and fifty bucks?”

“Well, it’s honey, not white truffles. There is a price ceiling there.”

“What happens when he realizes that you sold him a jar of honey he could’ve gotten for $250?”

“I sold him the rarest, most expensive honey on planet Earth. Exactly as advertised. He will use my story to resell it for thousands in whatever currency he wishes. If he decides I got the better of him, it will just make him respect me more.”

Sean shook his head.

“Besides if things went sour, you would totally spring to my rescue. I’m sure if you did some ferocious growling…”

Sean stopped and peered down the alley. I listened. A quiet melody floated on the breeze, beautiful and sad. It came from the dark archway just ahead. Sean pushed the cart forward, forgetting I was there and stopped before the door.

A man leaned against the doorway. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a mane of graying hair he watched us, his face in the shadow. The light caught his eyes and they flashed with telltale yellow. A werewolf.

Next to me Sean went really still. He wasn’t afraid. He just waited, loose and ready, watching, listening.

“What unit?” the man called out.

Sean didn’t answer.

“I asked you a question, soldier. Where were you stationed?”

“Ft. Benning,” Sean said. “I didn’t fight for your world in your war. I fought for my country in mine.”

The man stepped forward. Weather and age had chiseled his face. He looked grizzled, scuffed around the edges like an old gun, but no less deadly. He inhaled deeply.

“Alpha strain. You can’t be more than thirty. That would make you Earthborn.” He slumped a little against the doorway. “Well, how about that. We achieved the viable offspring after all. Come inside. You’re my life’s work. You have nothing to fear from me.”

I was dressed and ready when Sean walked through the door of the inn. He saw me. His eyebrows crept up. I wore a dark purple T-shirt, jeans, and heavy boots. I also wore a belt with a large knife on it.

I picked up my robe and slipped it on over my outfit. It would be hot, but there was no help for it.

“Where is Arland?”

“Rapunzel decided to walk around in the woods to get ‘the feel of the battleground.’ He won’t leave the grounds and he promises to defend the inn with ‘all the strength in his body.’ I told him that if he got in trouble, he should try singing prettily so his woodland friends would come to the rescue. I don’t think he got it.”

“Are you ready to go?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I picked up a large grey cloak off the chair and held it out for him. He came over.

“Why?”

“Because when people don’t know exactly what weapons you’re carrying or where your money is, they’re less likely to assault you.”

“Should I expect to be assaulted?”

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

I draped the cloak over his shoulders and fastened it in the front. It hid him neck to toe.

I glanced up and saw him looking back at me with amber eyes. That was a mistake. The eyes caught me, mesmerizing, full of some strange wildness, dangerous but so alluring. It was always there, but usually he kept it half-hidden, especially once the vampires showed up. I had caught glimpses of it, like a flash of an wolf darting between the trees, but now, without warning, the wolf turned and stared back at me with amused interest, as if daring me to come for a closer look.

Alarm streaked through me.

I was standing too close.

And I was touching him.

Sean wasn’t a tame kind of wolf. I had no business staring into his eyes.

“Where exactly are we going shopping?” he asked quietly. His lips curled slightly.

He knew exactly what he was doing, looking at me like that.

I dropped my hands, stepped back, and smiled. “To Baha-char. Follow me.”

I picked up my broom, swiped my backpack off the floor, and went down the hallway. Beast ran ahead of me. Hair-thin cracks glowing with electric blue formed on the shaft, and the broom flowed, shaping itself into a knobby staff. A razor-sharp crescent blade formed at its top with a fist-sized sphere in the middle. I shouldered my backpack, adjusting its weight on my bag.  It’s funny how heavy a couple of gallons of liquid could be.

“Let me carry that,” Sean said.

“You can’t carry it. You’re my bodyguard. You might need your hands free.”

“It’s not a purse. I’m not going to carry it in my hands.” He held his hands up. “I’m going to put it on my back.”

Judging by his face, it would be easier just to let him have the backpack. He wouldn’t settled down until he took it from me.

I passed the bag to him. “Do you have to be difficult about everything?”

“Only about things that matter.” He slung the backpack on his shoulder.

“Stay close to me. Please don’t wander off. Please don’t start fights. If someone assaults you, it’s okay to kill them, although if you don’t have to use maximum force, I would appreciate if you didn’t. ”

The doorway ahead of us swung open. Bright light spilled into hallway.

“Ready?”

“I was born ready,” Sean said.

I motioned to the door with a sweep of my hand. He stepped through. Beast dashed after him and I followed them into the light.

#

The heat enveloped me, the dry happy heat of a summer plain somewhere in the tropics. For a moment I could see nothing except for the bright sunlight that filled the space, golden yet somehow with a light lavender tint. Then the large pale yellow tiles that lined the road in front of me came into focus. A moment and I saw tall buildings rising on both sides of the street. Built with sand-colored stone and decorated with geometric tiles, they stretched toward the sky fifteen floors high, each equipped with a collection of terraces, balconies, ledges, and bridges decorated with geometric tiles and drowning in greenery. Here and there bright burgundy, gold, and turquoise banners flapped in the breeze, between odd vines climbing down the walls. We stood in a deserted alley. A hum came from somewhere ahead.

Sean blinked at the sun and glanced at me. “This is real, right?”

I closed the door leading into the inn and started down the alley. “Keep up, Sean.”

The alley narrowed, turned, and opened into the street.

Sean froze.

A busy thorough way the size of a six lane highway stretched on both sides of us. The terraced buildings rose high on both sides of it, their textured ledges and balconies drowning in greenery. Stone bridges spanned the street, dangerously high. Merchant stalls sprouted here and there, under bright canvas cloth, offering strange fruits in ornate crates, robotic parts, high-grade cybernetics, perfume, paint, cages creatures, weapons, and jewelry. Open doors under glowing signs invited shoppers, and the merchants waved holographic images of their wares at the crowd in the street.

A mass of creatures moved through it all, colorful, varied, and loud. Some were human, some furry, some feathered, others wrapped in cloth or in armor. The air vibrated with hundreds of haggling voices and sounds of boots, hoofs, and claws scraping the tiles. The breeze brought the aroma of cooked meat, tart and bitter spices, and the multi-layered, complex scents of the crowd.

Above it all in the purple sky, a colossal lavender planet rose, ethereal and pale. Huge chunks of it hung motionless separated from the main mass, as if the planet had been made of clay and someone shattered its edge with a precise blow of a hammer.

“What is this?” Sean whispered next to me.

“The Node. This is Baha-char. The place to buy things.”

He looked shell-shocked. His nostrils flared. He must’ve been sorting through all the different scents. I’d been coming to the Node since I was five years old. For me it was exciting but familiar. For him with all the different noises, smells, and creatures it was probably overwhelming.

“Come on.” I stepped into the traffic. He followed me. We turned right and moved with the flow of the crowd. Beast trotted a few steps ahead of us, clearly in charge of the expedition.

To the left a small hooded creature darted through the crowd. A tall woman, skeletally thin and wrapped in hundreds of silvery chains, chased after it, yelling. The creature zigzagged and veered right. The woman tried to follow and collided with a large cloaked creature. He whirled around, his face an odd meld of dinosaur and human, and lunged at her. The woman howled and raked him with long claws. They ripped into each other, rolling on the ground. The crowd parted around them and kept moving, leaving them snarling and growling.

“Fun place,” Sean said.

“Whatever you’re looking for, you will find it at Baha-char,” I said. “That includes trouble.”

We crossed the street and turned left into one of the side streets, only slightly less wide. Here the traffic was lighter. To the left and slightly in front of us, two men walked shoulder to shoulder. The first wore leather pants, a white shirt with wide sleeves, and a leather vest over it. A wide leather bracer enclosed his left forearm. His hair a rare blond shade, almost gold, hung in a horse tail down his back. Lean, he moved with a casual aristocratic elegance, perfectly balanced. Watching him you had a feeling that if the road suddenly became a tightrope, he would just keep on walking without breaking a stride. My father had moved like that. I sped up a little. We drew even and I saw a slender sword on his waist. That’s what I thought. An expert swordsman.

I glanced at his face and blinked. He was remarkably handsome.

The man to his left was not taller but larger, his shoulders broader, his body emanating contained aggression. He didn’t walk, he stalked, and you could tell by the way he moved that he would be very strong. His russet hair must’ve been cut really short at some point, but now it grew out and looked like he rolled out of bed, dragged his hand through it and went on about his day. He wore dark pants and a black leather jacket that was more doublet than motorcycle. A ragged scar crossed his left cheek and when he turned his head, his eyes shone with yellow. Interesting.

“It’s always work with you,” the russet-haired man said.

“Some of us have to mind the safety of the realm,” the blond said. A narrow smile curled his lips.

“I’ve given the realm eight years of my life. It can bite me,” the russet-haired man said. “How far is it?”

The blond man raised his left arm. A hawk dropped out of the sky and landed on his bracer. “We’re almost there. Two blocks left.”

“Good. Let’s get this crap and go home.”

They turned into the side street.

“That bird smelled dead,” Sean said.

“Dead?”

He nodded. “Tell me something. Why live on Earth when you can live here?”

“Some people go to exotic places on vacation and fall in love with them. Some of them even stay and then, once the newness wears off, they find that this new place is just as rough and mundane as they one they had left. Other people go to exotic places, visit, and then say, ‘That’s nice, but I miss my house and it’s time to go home.’ Earth is home. There is no prettier sky, there is no greener grass, and there is no place that feels as right.”

He mulled that over.

We made a right, then another right and stopped before a large building. A rectangular doorway gaped in the middle, dark like the mouth of some beast. A grey-skinned woman blocked it. Her dark hair fell below her waist in thin dreads. She looked at us with gold eyes, saw my face, and smiled, showing a mouth full of triangular sharp teeth.

“Greetings, Diina.”

“Greetings, Saar Ah. Will the Merchant see me?”

“Naan Cee always has time for you.” Saar Ah stepped aside. “Come on in.”

“How amusing.” Caldenia arched her eyebrows. “Usually it ends with a wedding.”

“Who was getting married?” I asked, turning the wall behind me opaque and opening the exits. I’d made my point and keeping the gateway open was draining the inn’s resources.

Arland shrugged his shoulders, settling into his chair. “My second cousin. I was in the middle of it due to my rank and it was a nightmare. Small things go wrong and normally sensible people become prone to hysterics over it. The issue of flowers alone… When I get married, I fully intend to pass all preparations onto someone else. As long as they tell me where to show up, I couldn’t care less about how the ribbons are folded and whether they are the right shade of red.” Arland nodded toward the door to the kitchen. “Does this mean you’ve decided I’m trustworthy?”

“No, I just want a cup of tea.” I rose and walked over to the kitchen. “Would anyone like anything?”

They shook their heads. I made myself a cup of Earl Grey and came back to my seat.

“A number of our friends and allies had been invited to the wedding, including House Gron,” Arland continued. “Our Houses were on peaceful terms for a long time, and three years ago we signed the Pact of Brotherhood.”

“Pacts of Brotherhood are rare,” I said for Sean’s benefit.

“Yes,” the vampire confirmed. “Treaties are forged and broken all the time. A Pact of Brotherhood is a binding thing. We swore to the alliance in a Cathedral of Chains and Light. This isn’t something that can be dismissed with a casual stab in the back.”

“Why would you bind yourself in this manner?” Caldenia asked. “Attachments of this sort tend to drag you down.”

Arland sighed. “It’s a complicated matter, involving trade routes, mutual enemies, and an illegitimate child. I could detail it for you, but suffice to say that an alliance was in our best interests. We are involved in an operation that hinges on a great deal of joint planning. The wedding was meant to underscore our Houses’ continued commitment to one another.”

“Let me guess,” Sean said, his face dark. “Someone was murdered.”

“The Band Bearer,” Arland said.

“They use arm bands and bracelets instead of rings,” I told Sean.

“She was a knight of significant renown and extremely difficult to kill,” Arland said. “Someone ambushed and murdered her in a rather gruesome way. We found her on the morning of the wedding. When the Cathedral Gates were opened, the entire wedding party saw her bloody corpse hanging from the ceiling, the sacred chains wrapped around her throat.” His eyebrows came together, his face hard. “She was my youngest aunt. Our House was dishonored, our Holy Place was desecrated, additionally the DNA and blood of a member of House Gron was found on her body.”

The insult had been monumental. Not only someone had slipped into the heart of the House Krahr territory, but they had murdered a knight at a wedding in a church. The House of Krahr had to deliver swift vengeance or lose their reputation within the Anocracy.

“What did you do?” Caldenia asked.

“We kept the results of the molecular analysis to ourselves or we would’ve had an immediate bloodbath on our hands. Only a handful of people know. Privately we met with House Gron and they denied all charges. They couldn’t explain the presence of the foreign blood on Olinia’s body, but I’ve known Sulindar Gron since we were four. We are the best of friends and brothers in arms. He swore his people didn’t do this and I’m inclined to believe him.”

Caldenia narrowed her eyes. “Why, because of sentimental childhood attachment?”

“No, because Sulindar is an insidious, conniving bastard. It was too obvious for him.”

Vampires. “Did you ever find the primary crime scene?” I asked.

Arland shook his head. “No. But my aunt did draw blood from her attacker. He’d used a vaporizer to hide it; however, we found traces of an unfamiliar fluid on her teeth. It took precious three days before we identified it as belonging to the dahaka. Their species is rare and he would have been noticed, so he hadn’t come through by normal channels. We don’t know how he got in or how he got out.”

“The plot thickens,” Caldenia said.

“It was as assassination,” Arland bared his fangs. “That in itself is weak. What vampire needs an assassin? But more importantly, it was designed to create a rift between Krahr and Gron. You have no idea how long we had worked on that joint offensive. This entire situation is a hissot.”

“What does that mean?” Sean asked.

“A knot of poisonous snakes that is epic in its vileness.” Frustration vibrated in Arland’s voice. “Two seasons of planning, gone. There are fifty thousand Krahr followers demanding that the guilty be punished and about as many Gron cohorts placed on alert, because their leadership is preparing for war. It isn’t enough for the dahaka to die. We must find who hired him. He could be working for our enemies, for some third party, perhaps even for Gron. This is the reason my uncle was injured. He wasn’t trying to kill the dahaka. He was trying to capture him.”

Sean leaned forward. “I saw what it did to your uncle’s men. Trust me, we don’t have the resources to hold it.”

“Spoken like sergeant,” Arland said.

Sean gave him a flat stare.

“Don’t get me wrong, sergeants are the backbone of the army. A good one is worth his weight in gold. But they do not concern themselves with the bigger picture. It’s not just about revenge. It’s about the stability of two Houses. The dahaka must be taken alive.”

Sean crossed his arms.

“By myself, I’m outmatched,” Arland said. “However, we share common interests. You want the dahaka gone from your planet and so do I. Together we have a fighting chance.”

“We don’t have enough people to capture it,” Sean said. “This is a simple fact. If you think about it for a moment, you’ll come to the same conclusion.”

“We could lure it onto the inn grounds.”

“It won’t work,” I said.

“What makes you so sure, my lady?” Arland asked.

“I spoke to it.”

The vampire stared at me. I’d seen this precise expression on Sean’s face before.

“When was this?” Arland asked quietly.

“When Sean brought Lord Soren in. I felt a disturbance, went outside, and saw it on the lamppost. We had a conversation.”

“And you didn’t feel the need to tell me?” Arland asked.

“No.”

Sean already knew – he’d seen the dahaka running away, and since the vampires haven’t been forthcoming with information, I had kept it to myself.

Arland opened his mouth, but no words came out. Some sort of monumental struggle seemed to take place. Finally some words emerged. “That was extremely unwise.”

“Not telling me your purpose on this planet was even more so.”

Sean smiled his handsome-devil smile.

Arlanmd considered it. “Very well. That I deserved.”

Sean looked at me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what did it want?”

“Lord Soren.”

Sean frowned. “Why?”

”Bonus,” Caldenia murmured.

We looked at her. She waved her hand with an elegant flourish. “Ignore me.”

“The dahaka struck me as smart and vicious. It holds us in complete contempt – it called me meat. But it didn’t attack and none of its stalkers made a serious effort to rush the inn. It knows what I am and it’s very careful not to enter the grounds.”

“Could you restrain it if it did?” Arland asked.

“On the grounds, possibly. In the house, definitely. But it’s not likely to let itself be lured to the inn.”

Arland rocked back and exhaled, venting frustration. “There has to be a way to trap it. With all due respect, you are just an innkeeper, my lady. You have no experience with hunting prey.”

Okay, then. Glad we decided to clear that up.

“Perhaps we could flush him out,” Arland said.

“Not without attracting attention,” Sean said. “Attention is the last thing we need.”

“Agreed.” The vampire bared his fangs.

They stared at each other, then looked at me. I shrugged. “I’m not a mighty hunter. I’m a southern belle who stays home, bakes cookies, and possibly serves mighty hunters iced tea if they happened to drop by.”

Arland blinked.

“You broke it, you fix it,” Sean said.

The vampire leaned forward and focused on me. His eyes turned warm, and a charming self-deprecating smile lit his face.

Wow.

“I didn’t choose my words tactfully, my lady. I’m only a man, after all, and a solider, unskilled in the way of polite society. I’ve dedicated myself to the service of my House. My business is that of blood and slaughter and I haven’t been fortunate enough to be refined by a woman’s gentle touch.”

Sean coughed into his fist. One of the coughs sounded suspiciously like “bullshit.”

“I ask humbly for your forgiveness. I neither deserve nor expect it, and therefore appeal only to your compassion. Should I be fortunate enough to be forgiven, I promise to never repeat my transgression.”

Unfortunately for Arland I had encountered a few vampires before. “A vampire of a different House once told me something very similar. He even knelt on one knee while he said it.”

“Did you forgive him?” Arland hit me with another smile. Vampire smiles should really be outlawed.

“While I was busy thinking it over, he leapt at me and tried to break my neck with his teeth, so no.” I was fifteen years old at the time and it was an excellent lesson in vampire manners. Despite their beautiful faces, their religion, their ceremonies, and charm, vampires were predators. If you forgot it even for a second, you risked your life, because they always remembered.

Arland opened his mouth.

“I’m not upset with you, my lord. I just have no ideas on how to trap the dahaka. Or how to kill it.”

“May I have some tea?” Caldenia asked.

“Of course.” I went in the kitchen and took her favorite mug from the cabinet.

“Would a high-power rifle do it?” Sean asked.

“What sort of rifle?” Arland asked.

“Stealth Recon Scout,” Sean said.

“Does it fire a metal projectile?”

“Yes.”

“How fast?”

“Fast enough to kill a man from two thousand yards away.”

“I don’t believe so,” Arland grimaced. “The dahaka is likely to have magnetic disrupters in addition to armor, helmet, and an extremely thick skull.”

I brought a cup of Lemon Zinger to Caldenia. She accepted it with a nod.

“We could try an armor piercing round,” Sean said.

“If I may.” Caldenia stirred her tea. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

“And what would be the right question, Your Grace?” Arland asked.

***

“Have any of you ever hired an assassin?” Caldenia raised her tea cup to her lips, holding it with her long fingers. Her nails, manicured and carefully shaped, still resembled claws.

“No,” Arland said.

Sean shook his head.

“A messy business. If you do hire one for something sensitive, then you have to have him killed, and then you have to get someone else to kill the killer… It’s like dominoes. There is no end to it” Caldenia shrugged. “A good assassin always keeps insurance. Some sort of token, some evidence that will permit him to threaten his employer should he find himself in danger of being eliminated, which aforementioned employer, if he is smart, should definitely attempt.”

“It’s a Catch-22,” Sean said.

“A dilemma,” Caldenia said. “Most employers seek to eliminate the assassins after the job is completed, and most assassins, predictably, wish to remain alive. With that in mind, ask yourself why is the dahaka here?”

“I don’t follow.” Arland frowned.

“Why hasn’t he returned to his planet, filled with other dahakas?”

“We don’t know if it’s a he,” I murmured.

“Always assign a gender to an adversary,” Caldenia said. “It keeps you from thinking you’re dealing with a dumb animal. Why does he remain here on a neutral world, risking discovery, when he could be enjoying the fruits of his labor on his own planet where he is untouchable?”

Good question. “Perhaps he can’t go home? Maybe he’s banished, but even then, he should be moving on, not hanging around.”

Caldenia nodded and glanced at Arland. “Remind me, what happens when a craft enters the atmosphere of your particular planet?”

“The procedure is the same for all six planets in the Holy Anocracy,” Arland said. “The orbital defenses challenge the craft, which then transmits a passcode by means of a House crest. As the craft descends into the territory of a particular House, the air defenses challenge it in turn. Again, the crest transmits a passcode. For example, we temporarily permitted members of House Gron to enter our atmosphere for the week it took to attend the wedding festivities.”

Oh no. “Can the House crest be duplicated?” I asked.

“No. It’s genetically coded to each ranking member of the House and it evolves with the deeds of the bearer. It’s a communication unit, an emergency power supply, and many other things. A vampire would never part with…”

Caldenia smiled at her tea.

Arland fell silent. “I am an idiot.”

“The dahaka has a House crest,” Sean guessed.

“That’s the only way he could have passed through the House air defenses. We thought he was smuggled in, but we couldn’t find any record of a ship returning or taking off in the specific window of the murder. Of course, if he had a crest, we wouldn’t know. The transmissions from House crests work like a key: they unlock the safe passage, but there is no record of which of them are activated when.”

“Seems like a security oversight,” Sean said.

“We don’t like to be tracked. If the dahaka has a crest, he could’ve dropped into the wilderness, walked out, killed my aunt, and taken off again.”

Muscles flexed along Arland’s frame. He looked like a cat about to pounce. His eyes shone with red. “To sink so low as to let an outsider have possession of your crest. It is akin to a violation of the House. Whoever did it had to be desperate.”

“That’s right,” Caldenia said. “You are finally thinking in the right direction.”

“He still has it,” Arland snarled. “He still has the crest or he couldn’t have left the planet.”

“If you get a hold of it, would you know who it belongs to?” Sean asked.

“Yes.”

Arland flashed his fangs and I felt an urge to move back. Beast snarled under my chair. There it was, the real vampire. An unstoppable, furious killer. That’s what made them so good at war. If they hadn’t fought between themselves so much, they could’ve conquered their corner of the Galaxy.

“On Earth when we hire contractors, we pay them half up front,” I said. “And half later, when the job is done.”

“We have the same practice,” Arland said.

“So if he still has the House crest,” I began.

“He’s waiting for the owner to come and pick it up,” Sean said. “The crest is his insurance. He trades it for the rest of the money and departs. That’s why he’s hanging around here. He can’t go home because the vampires won’t follow him there and he wants the money.”

“And he can’t stay in the Holy Anocracy, because any dahaka sighted would be instantly detained,” Arland said. “Whose crest does he have, that is the question. Is it Gron or is it Krahr?”

Caldenia leaned forward, her face suddenly sharp. “Think. Think about your uncle.”

Arland’s eyes narrowed. “The dahaka wanted to kill him. Why… It couldn’t be a kill of conquest. The dahaka had already bested my uncle and had nothing to prove. It couldn’t be a trophy hunt, because being an assassin requires discipline beyond collecting trophies and nothing was taken from my aunt’s body. The dahaka kills for money.”

Pieces clicked in my head. I glanced at Caldenia. “Bonus.”

She nodded.

“He would be paid extra for my uncle. Soren was a specific target. If a third party wanted to drive a wedge between Krahr and Gron, they had already succeeded. Why pay extra for my uncle? For the same reason, if Gron was responsible for the murder, killing Soren makes no sense. He is pro-Gron and he stands firmly with me and the leadership of the House, but he isn’t the main policy maker. If someone from Gron wanted Soren eliminated for personal reasons, they would’ve challenged him directly. There is no honor in assassination.”

Arland stared into space. I could almost feel his brain straining.

“If Soren is removed, his assets and control of his troops pass to Renadra. She’s young and doesn’t have the seniority, so under normal circumstances she would likely support whatever decision the leadership of the House makes, but she also adores her father, so if he were killed and Gron were blamed, she would seek retribution. Her maternal grandmother is the Blood Archimandrite of the Crimson Abbey. Before the war between Gron and Krahr could begin, the Pact has to be broken. It takes a dispensation from a high knight of the church to dissolve a Pact of Brotherhood. Renadra’s grandmother would qualify. Renadra is the only female grandchild she has and she is very fond of her. She would grant her this favor. The Archimandrite would bless this war.”

“Would Gron know this?” Sean asked.

“No,” Arland’s voice was quiet and vicious. “They wouldn’t.”

“You know who it is,” Caldenia said, her voice confidential, persuasive. “You’ve avoided the answer because it’s painful to contemplate. The person is a relative, a friend. But you’ve seen the signs, the small things, the whispers of discontent, the wrong expression on someone’s face. Let it come to you.  You can’t prove it, but this isn’t about proving it, it’s about knowing it.”

Arland stared at her. His eyes glowed with pure intense red, like the eyes of a nightmarish jungle cat staring from the gloom at the intruder into his territory. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

“The dahaka is expecting to be paid,” Arland said.  “The traitor will not have his crest but he can send a code that would make the crest respond.  So can I.  That’s how we find our dead.”

Caldenia nodded. “There is hope for you yet, my boy.”

“What if I am wrong?”

She shrugged. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But do be right.”

“It’s still only the two of us against him and his stalkers,” Sean said.

“Three,” I told him.

The vampire and werewolf stared at me with an identical expression on their faces.

“No,” Sean said.

“Absolutely not,” Arland agreed. “You are at your weakest away from the inn.”

“Then don’t lure him too far away from the inn,” I said. “You will need me.”

“Dina, it will take the two of us to keep him occupied,” Sean said quietly. “The stalkers will be swarming us. He’s wearing armor and I have enhanced regeneration. You have neither. They will key on you and there is not a lot I could do about it.”

“I might have something that will help with stalkers,” I said. “Depending on how much money I can pool together.”

“House Krahr is not without means,” Arland said.

“I’ll let you know if I exhaust my own.”

Arland nodded.  “If we are to lure the dahaka, we’ll need someplace secluded, away from witnesses and room to move, but not too far from the inn.”

“There is a field behind her orchard.” Sean said. “It’s secluded and hidden by the trees from all sides.”

“Yes, it used to be a horse pasture a long time ago. The fence is gone, but I keep the grass mowed.” I said.  “How do you know about it?”

“I’ve mapped your entire property,” Sean said.  “It’s in my territory.”

Ha.

Arland rose. “I would like to examine this pasture.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sean said.

Good idea.  There was no telling where Arland would end up left to his own devices.

The vampire headed to the door. Sean stopped by my chair. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I appreciate your concern.”

He frowned.  “We need to talk about this.  In private.”

“I’m going shopping in half an hour or so.  You’re welcome to join me.”

He nodded and went after Arland.

I drank the last of my now cold tea.

“Going shopping?” Caldenia asked.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Would you like a few names?”

“No, thank you.” I got up. I would need to put on something more than just a robe for the trip. If I was lucky, it would only wipe out my savings and leave my legs and arms intact.

“Dina?”

I turned.

The older woman smiled. “Why are you helping them?”

“Because the safety of the inn and its guests is now in jeopardy.”

“And the fact that both of them are heartbreakers has nothing to do with it?”

“They are very nice to look at. But the dahaka threatened me in my own house. That I will not tolerate.” The vicious edge in my voice was kind of surprising.

Caldenia laughed quietly.

I went to get dressed. I’d need good boots for this.

This was really, really stupid. If I survived, I would never do it again. Well, at least not without a lot of practice first. Very careful practice, the kind that wouldn’t hurt like this.

I really didn’t want to die. Thinking about dying stabbed at me. Suddenly I was so unbearably sad. I would’ve cried if I could. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. There was so much still that I wanted to do and to see. I wanted years. Years to grow the inn, to meet strange guests, to experience the small happy comforts. Years to fall in love and be happy. Years to search and find my parents.

Mom… I’m so afraid. I am so, so scared. I wish you were here. I wish you were with me. You always made everything better.

Sean wasn’t coming. He probably didn’t even know where I was. I had to get myself up. I had to do something.

I tried to move my right arm. It just lay there. I strained. Nothing. Not even a twitch of my fingers. I was trapped in my own body.

Nobody would find me. I was in the middle of a parking lot in a back seat in a car with tinted windows. It was barely ten o’clock and the car was already sweltering. The heat pressed on me like a thick suffocating blanket. Even if I managed to hold on, I’d die of heat stroke before noon.

Get up. You’re not going to roll over and just die here in the back of your own car. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

I concentrated on my hand. Nothing. I was getting weaker.

All I had to do was pick up my phone, dial 911, and speak. Such a small thing. I had never felt so helpless.

Not matter how much I kicked and screamed inside, my body refused to respond. Sweat beaded on my face.

The passenger door swung open. The hot air escaped in a sudden draft and I saw Sean’s face. He leaned over me. His eyes widened. His face didn’t change expression. It just turned a shade paler. I must’ve looked like hell.

“Can you speak?”

…

“Hospital?”

“Nnnn…”

“Inn?”

I tried to nod.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

He leaned in, his body over mine, so close, I felt the heat of his skin, picked up the car keys off the floor, and disappeared. The door closed.

Don’t go.

The driver door opened and Sean dropped into the seat. The motor started and then we were moving.

Ten minutes. That’s how long it usually took me to drive to Costco. Fifteen, if I caught red on every street light.

I could hold on for fifteen minutes.

I clung to life. The car moved, the shadows of the trees we passed sliding over us in long stripes. A blast of cold air washed over me. He must’ve turned on the AC. It felt like heaven.

“Don’t worry,” Sean said. “Passing Redford. Almost there. It will be okay.”

My back went numb. It felt like I was floating…

The car stopped. The door swung open. Sean scooped me up, shifted me in his arms, so I leaned against his shoulder, and ran to the inn.

I felt the precise moment he had crossed the boundary. The shock of magic pulsed through like a current from a live wire. I gasped.

“Almost there,” Sean told me. “Hold on.”

The front door opened and he ducked inside.

The inn shuddered. Every wall, every board in the floor, every rafter and beam creaked, popped, and groaned in unison. The sound was deafening. The walls stretched toward us. The entire building curved. Somewhere to the right Beast yowled in her high-pitched, small-dog voice.

Sean squared his shoulders, trying to shield me.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s just scared. Put me down.”

Slowly, his gaze still on the ceiling, he lowered me to the floor. My back made contact with the wood. A warm soothing feeling flooded me. Years ago, when we went to the Keys, I lay on the sandy bank during a high tide. The ocean water, so warm it might have been taken from a hot tub, gently washed, at first under me, then over me, until the rising tide lifted me from the sand and I floated, with the setting sun and rising moon above me in the sky. That’s exactly what it felt like.

“Can I do anything?” Sean asked.

The floor bent. Thick striated tendrils of polished wood wound about me, lifting me up. Sean took a step back.

“Bring me my broom. Please.”

He turned around and grabbed the broom from its spot in the corner. The tendrils wound together, forming a cocoon, sliding and winding about each other, holding me up a foot off the ground. Sean turned, saw the cocoon, and took a step back.

“It’s okay,” I told him.

Slowly Sean held the broom out to me. A tendril swiped it and thrust it into the cocoon, next to me.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

For a moment we stayed there, with two inches between us and then the tendrils pulled and carried me fast across the floor, through the new gap in the wall, deep into the heart of the inn.

#

I opened my eyes.  Around me soothing darkness waited, soft and warm.  Faint blue lights floated past me, like a swarm of dim electric fireflies on the way to their nest.

The tendrils that held me had formed a pillar anchored to the floor and the ceiling.  A warm energy flowed through them, the lifeblood of the inn pulsing like the beating of a giant heart.  It lit the tendrils from within with a faint, gentle golden glow, turning the wood translucent, so the grain was only barely visible.  The air smelled fresh and clean, the way it would smell deep in the woods on a sunny day.

Another swarm fluttered by.  The magic was so thick here, you could scoop it with a cup.

I had come here once before, when I first arrived.  I’d walked deep into the inn – it had been asleep and I had to force my way through the walls – and then I had sat down here at the inert tangle of the inn’s roots, put my hands on them, and fed it magic until they stirred.  Gertrude Hunt had been asleep for years, its stasis so deep, it was a kind of death.  Bringing it back from deep sleep had taken a long time.

Now the tendrils hugged me, sharing the magic of the inn with me.  We had come the full circle.

“Thank you,” I said.  “But it’s time.  I stayed too long.”

The tendrils tightened a little more, protective, gentle but firm.

The innkeepers never did officially agree if the inns could feel or not.  We knew they reacted, but whether they loved us or simply served us out of a symbiotic need had never been determined.  I had my own opinion on that.

“It’s time,” I whispered again and petted the roots.

The tendrils pulled apart.  I slid down and stepped onto the warm surface. All my clothes were gone and my feet were bare.

Something small lunged from the shadows and licked my foot.

“Hello, Beast.”

The tiny dog dashed about me in a frantic circle.

A tendril rose.  My robe hung off it.  It hovered, waiting, as if hesitant. It was so nice to stay here in the serene darkness.  But I had an inn to protect. I slipped my robe on and took my broom.

The darkness parted in front of me, walls and dimensions compressing and spinning in a dizzying rush.  Looking at it would be enough to send an entire university’s worth of string theory physicists into fits. Sounds of distant male voices arguing filtered through. Of course. I’d left them alone for a few hours. I took one last look at the heart of the inn behind me, sighed, and stepped through the chaotic mess into the hallway leading to the foyer.

#

“If Dina dies, I will eat you, dear.” Caldenia said it with complete aplomb.

“You may find it very difficult, your Grace,” Arland answered.

“No, she’ll find it easy once I’m done with you,” Sean said.

“I’m amused that you think I’ll need help, but very well, you may have him first. I do enjoy my meat properly tenderized. Please try to keep comminuted fractures to a minimum,” Caldenia said.

“What kind of fractures?” Sean frowned.

“Comminuted. That’s when bones splinter into shards and pieces. It’s quite difficult to dig them out of my teeth, while maintaining decorum.”

I touched my hand to the wall and sent out a push to isolate the room.

The front door melted, turning into a wall. The light outside changed slightly, gaining a pale orange tint. The doorway to the kitchen sealed itself. So did the upstairs landing, just out of sight. My body protested against magic expended, but if you’re going to punch a vampire, you have to punch him hard. This would be one hell of a shock to the system.

“I have done nothing wrong…” Arland started.

The northern wall melted, obeying my will. Arland stopped in mid-word. Sean froze on his feet. Caldenia rose slowly.

An orange plain rolled outside under the purple sky. The wall had opened on top of a cliff and from this angle the vast expanse of the wastes looked infinite. The sun had set, but the distant west was still on fire with carmine and yellow. The moon, enormous, taking up half of the horizon, hung above us to the left in the dark sky, the stars behind it bright and sharp. Under it, pale yellow grass climbed up the harsh flame-colored dunes. Scraggly trees, their twisted branches dry, stood here and there, supporting flat crowns of green needles.

The plain stared at them and exhaled in their face, filling the room with dry bitter scent of grass and something else. Something animal and feral. It was a wild nasty scent that slashed across your instinct like a knife and whispered straight into your mind, “Something big is near. Something hungry and vicious.”

The ground shuddered. A colossal creature strode into view on six gargantuan legs, each big enough to flatten a car. It moved fast, the six legs gripping, the long segmented tail with a heavy barb on the end snapping as it trotted. The dying light played on its purple hide.

Sean opened his mouth and stayed that way for a second. Arland’s right hand was opening and clenching, probably looking for the handle of his sword.

The monster paused and suddenly reared, resting the bulk of towering above the plain like a semi set vertically on the road. Long thick neck bent, swiveling the wide head right then left. Six pairs of blood-orange eyes scanned the grass. The beast inhaled, fluttering its nostrils. We must’ve smelled odd.

The beast’s giant maw opened, so wide it looked like his head had been cut in two, baring a forest of traffic cone teeth and roared.

It was a sound most civilized beings would never hear, but if they did, they would remember it forever. They would recognize it even in their sleep and if they heard it again, they would stop talking and thinking and they would find the nearest dark hole and hide in it.

Both Arland and Sean tensed and looked behind them.

“The exits are gone,” Arland said.

“I saw.” Sean shrugged his shoulders, as if getting ready for a sprint.

I stepped out of the shadows and walked between them. As I stepped into the light of the the fading sunset, my robe turned russet, shifting its silhouette slightly to adjust itself to the different world.

“What is this?” Arland asked.

“Kolinda. The inn exists in more than one place. There are doors between worlds and some of them lead here. There are two kinds of keepers on Earth: the innkeepers and the ad-hal keepers.”

The monster on the plain turned toward us, finally pinpointing the source of odd smells. I turned my back to it.

“Ad-hal is an ancient word that means secret.”

“Dina,” Sean said, looking over my shoulder.

“All those who enter our world are subject to the treaty, and treaty’s most important provision is that it must remain secret.”

The ground shook, sending vibrations through the floor. The monster was galloping toward us.

“Those who lose their inn or the children of the innkeepers who have no inn to keep become the ad-hal,” I said. “When someone actively tries to expose us, they come. This happens very rarely but it happens. They apprehend the guilty and take them to places like this.

The entire inn shook now. The six-legged beast was climbing the cliff toward us.

“My lady!” Arland took a step forward

“There will be no shuttle,” I said. “No dimensional gate, no magic portal. No rescue, no way to call home. There is only you and the wilderness.”

I turned slowly, just in time to see the furious eyes and then huge teeth.

A cloud of fetid hot breath washed over me. I tapped the broom on the floor. The wall reappeared, transparent. The beast snarled, confused, but no sound came. It clawed the empty air in front of it, but we were beyond its reach. My robe reshaped itself again.

“Today the stalker attacked me in plain daylight in front of witnesses in a crowded store. I had done everything I could to contain the exposure and I almost died. By withholding the information, you and the house of Krahr become complicit in that breach.”

Arland’s eyes narrowed. “So this is a threat?”

“I don’t threaten my guests, my lord. I have no need to do it. This is a reality check. If the dahaka keeps attacking, I can’t guarantee I can conceal it. Nobody can make that guarantee, because it doesn’t care. If the cow herd it had slaughtered didn’t look like an attack of wild animals, the secret keepers would be here already. If the ad-hal come for you, I won’t protect you. Not only I can’t, but I won’t. Your secrets endanger all of us and safety of my guests is my first priority. If you are discovered, your House will be dishonored and banned from Earth.”

I sat down.

“We have a saying here. The ball is in your court. I believe you have a similar statement.”

“The krahr is eating your horses,” Arland said. His face was grim. “If I tell you, what guarantees will I have that this knowledge stays in this room?”

“Who would we share it with?” I asked.

Arland looked at Caldenia. She shrugged. “The inn is my permanent residence, as you may have heard.”

The vampire turned to Sean.

“Yes, I’ll take it to the evening news, because I always wanted to be seen as a complete madman. I would enjoy being locked up for the rest of my life. And my parents, who are still on the planet and are still alien, would be so proud.”

“A simple yes would be sufficient,” Arland said.

We all waited. He sat down and opened his mouth. “It started with a wedding.”

Where were we?  We had to completely redo a flooded kitchen and then a flooded bathroom.  More details on the blog on the main site.

I forgot what’s going on.  

Spoilers (synopsis) below.

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Dina runs a magic inn for magic creatures, hidden from the rest of the humanity.  When dogs in her neighborhood begin to die, she decides to track down the killer and ends up enlisting help from a werewolf, Sean Evans.  Sean had no idea other supernatural creatures existed, but he deals with it the best he can and tries to help Dina.

Turns out that the dogs are being killed by stalkers, a pack of alien hounds that are owned by a dahaka, a dangerous creature.  When Dina and Sean activate a tracking device they find inside one of the stalkers, they draw attention from one of the vampire houses of Holy Cosmic Anocracy. A group of vampires led by a noble, Lord Soren, land and attempt to go after dahaka only to be slaughtered.  Sean managed to save Lord Soren and brings him to the inn.

Shortly after Alrand, Lord Soren’s nephew, arrives and requests the right of sanctuary for himself and his uncle, which Dina grants.  Arland and activities of his House are obviously connected to dahaka’s presence, but he refuses to say anything about it.  Sean and Arland square off, and Sean loses his temper and leaves.  Dina orders Arland to his quarters and decides to go to Costco to shop for necessary ingredients and to collect her thoughts.

On with the story.

***

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

Maybe it was the feeling of plenty.  Everything was super-sized. 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 did he even get my number?

I let it buzz.  He didn’t leave a voicemail.  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.  Unfortunately rules of hospitality dictated that I treat him as a guest.  He asked for sanctuary, and I 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 of concealment provision.

Arland didn’t lie 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 Arland didn’t fit that description, but also invoking this clause almost always guaranteed having your inn marked down. It was an admission of failure on the innkeeper 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.”  Gertrude Hunt was at two marks and getting down to one would mean the end of the inn.

The last clause had to do with the 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 existence of these inns and 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.  Inns grew and could generate their own materials.  Wood was the easiest, because it was already organic.  Stone was harder, but an inn with a root system large enough could absorb enough minerals to synthesize limestone, marble and granite given time.  Plastic was pretty much impossible. It was a lot easier on the inn if the raw materials were already provided. Gertrude Hunt has the advantage of age – the inn had really deep roots, but it had stood abandoned for so long.  The flurry of recent activity wasn’t really straining it, but I would 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 freezers.  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 did you think you saw?”

A harsh grating noise cut through the quiet.  Something sharp has scratched across metal.  I looked up.  Above the freezer on the white wall a stalker sat, fastened to the drywall with 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 shelves in front of me and my cart.  Shelves: paper towels, paper plates, napkins.  Cart: ten 3-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 grabbed the metal shelves, sending a precision pulse through the building.  The magic zapped through the shelving 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!”

“Like hell! This place is full of old people and kids.”

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.  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 on its head.  The beast jerked back and raked the bottle with claws – the plastic held.

A huge jar of tomato paste crashed into the beast’s side.  It snapped at the woman, lashing with its claws.  The tips of its talons cut across the woman’s forearm.  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 a whispery eerie growl that raised every hair on my body. The woman swiped cans from her cart and threw it 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 jerked the cap off the bleach and dumped it over the ugly face.

The stalker screamed, like nails on the 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 raked its body.  It jerked off the floor and crashed back, like a fish out of water.  Its head hit the concrete with a wet crunching sound, like an egg shattering on a hard surface. Cracks split its skull, seeping white slime.  It hammered its head against the floor, leaving wet puddles smudged with slime.

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

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

The woman stared at it.  Blood dripped from her arm.  A fine spray of red covered her face – must’ve been cast off when she dropped the cans.  She wiped her face with her left forearm and kicked the stalker’s corpse with her sneaker.   “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 eye witness who wouldn’t change her story and if someone suggested she was crazy, she’d likely hit them with a 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 tissues samples, snap pictures, and document it. It would be on the internet within minutes.  Once the body left Costco, there was no way to contain it and I would be irreversibly tied to it.  I had fired 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.

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. “Clean up on Aisle Five.” I smiled.

She giggled.  I giggled back. It came out a little crazy. I sounded like a lunatic that 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’s only impossible because nobody had 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 me 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 breath.  It wasn’t just a 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 just got 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 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 onto 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 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 check out.

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 the 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 parked far so it would be easier to pull out.

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.

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

I swayed and managed the last couple of feet.  I squeezed 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?  Did I manage to kill myself?  Mom?  Dad?  Do you know what happens now?

Snap out of it.  I pulled the phone out of 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 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.