One Fell Sweep E-Book

Ilona Andrews

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 452

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

From the New York Times #1 bestselling author, Ilona Andrews, comes a new tale from the Innkeeper Chronicles "Ilona Andrews's books are guaranteed good reads."—Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fire Touched Dina Demille may run the nicest Bed and Breakfast in Red Deer, Texas, but she caters to a very particular kind of guest… the kind that no one on Earth is supposed to know about. Guests like a former intergalactic tyrant with an impressive bounty on her head, the Lord Marshal of a powerful vampire clan, and a displaced-and-superhot werewolf; so don't stand too close, or you may be collateral damage. But what passes for Dina's normal life is about to be thrown into chaos. First, she must rescue her long-distant older sister, Maud, who's been exiled with her family to a planet that functions as the most lawless penal colony since Botany Bay. Then she agrees to help a guest whose last chance at saving his civilization could bring death and disaster to all Dina holds dear. Now Gertrude Hunt is under siege by a clan of assassins. To keep her guests safe and to find her missing parents, Dina will risk everything, even if she has to pay the ultimate price. Though Sean may have something to say about that!

Leseprobe

ONE FELL SWEEP

ILONA ANDREWS

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

One Fell Sweep

Copyright © 2016 by Ilona Andrews

Ebook ISBN: 9781943772711

Edited by Lora Gasway

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

121 W. 27TH St, Suite 1201, NY 10001, New York.

http://www.nyliterary.com

To Lora Gasway

Thank you for everything. We miss you and deeply regret your passing.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Teaser to SWEEP OF THE BLADE

Also by Ilona Andrews

About the Author

1

A faint chime tugged me out of sleep. I opened my eyes and blinked. I’d dreamt of a desert, a vast endless sea of shifting yellow sand under a white sun. I had wandered through it, ankle-deep and barefoot, feeling the grains of sand slide under my toes with each sinking step, trying to find something or someone. I had looked for hours, but found only more sand. The soothing ceiling of my dark bedroom was too much of a shock after the sunlit dunes, and for a confusing moment, I didn’t know where I was.

Magic chimed in my head again, brushing against my senses, feather-light and quick, but insistent. Someone had skimmed the boundary of the inn.

I swung my feet to the wooden floor, picked up my broom, and went down the shadowy hallway. Beast, my tiny Shih Tzu, darted from under the bed and trailed me, ready to attack unknown invaders. It was five days before Christmas, and I wasn’t expecting guests, especially not at two o’clock in the morning. But then, of course, when Gertrude Hunt Bed and Breakfast did receive guests, they were never the usual kind and they rarely announced themselves.

The hallway ended in a door. I swiped the knitted cardigan hanging on the hook to the right of the door, wrapped myself in it, and slid my feet into a pair of slippers. This December started with a flood and then turned unseasonably cold. At night, the temperature got down into the low thirties, which in Texas terms meant the apocalypse had to be nigh. Going outside was like stepping into a freezer, while the inside of the inn was warm and toasty, so I bundled up when I went out, then shed sweatshirts and cardigans at random doorways when I came back in.

The door swung open in front of me and I stepped out onto the balcony.

The cold air hit me. Wow.

The moon shone brightly, spilling silver light through the gauzy shreds of night clouds. My apple orchard stretched to the left. Directly in front of me a huge old oak tree spread its branches over the lawn, limbs nearly touching the balcony. To the right, Park Street ran parallel to the inn. Exactly opposite Gertrude Hunt, Camelot Road shot off Park Street, leading deep into the Avalon subdivision, filled with the usual two-story Texas houses with old trees on the trimmed lawns and dark vehicles parked in the driveways.

All was quiet.

I probed the night with my senses. The inn and I were bound so tightly that I could feel every inch of the grounds, if I chose. The intruder had touched the boundary but hadn’t entered, and now he or she hid.

I waited, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. My breath made tiny clouds that melted into the night.

Silence.

Someone was out there, watching me. I could feel the weight of their gaze. Shivers of fear or cold ran down my spine. Probably both.

“I know you’re there. Come out.”

Silence.

I peered into the night, scrutinizing the familiar landscape. The row of hedges separating Park Street from my lawn appeared undisturbed. No strange footprints crossed the lawn. Nothing hid in the oak tree, nothing rustled the bushes behind it, nothing troubled the cedar twenty feet behind the bushes…

Two amber eyes stared at me from the shadows under the cedar. I almost jumped.

“Sean!” He nearly gave me a heart attack.

Sean Evans didn’t move, a darker shadow in the deep night. Several months ago, we’d met just like this, except that time he was marking his territory on my apple trees. Now he just waited, silent, respecting the boundaries of the inn.

“Come closer,” I called, keeping my voice low. No need to wake up the entire neighborhood. “I don’t want to shout.”

He moved, a blur, ran up to the oak, leapt, bounced, and landed on the branch near the balcony. Déjà vu.

Beast woofed once, quietly, just to let him know she was there in case he decided to try anything.

“Is something wrong?”

I scrutinized his face. When Sean first moved into the Avalon subdivision, he’d caused a mild epidemic of swooning. If someone looked up “ex-military badass” in the dictionary, they would find his picture. He was closing on thirty, with a handsome face he kept clean-shaven, russet-brown hair cut short, and an athletic, powerful body. He was strong and fast, and crossing him was a dumb idea. He was also a werewolf without a planet, something the overwhelming majority of people on Earth had no idea existed. Several months ago, while Sean helped me defend the Avalon subdivision from an interstellar assassin, he’d learned about his origins and then left to find himself. He ended up being trapped in an interstellar war in a place called Nexus, and it took all my resources to break him free of it.

The war took a toll. A long scar now marked his face. The pre-Nexus Sean had been arrogant and aggressive. This new Sean was quiet and patient, and if you peered into his clear amber eyes, you would find a steel hardness. Sometimes you would see nothing at all, as if you were gazing into the eyes of a tiger. No hunger, no rage, just an inscrutable watchfulness. Sean and I had gone to the movies three nights ago, and a drunk guy tried to pick a fight with us outside the theater after the show. Sean looked at him, and whatever that man saw in Sean’s eyes must’ve cut right through the alcohol haze, because the drunk turned around without a word and walked away.

I could handle the arrogance and the anger, but that watchful nothing alarmed me. He hid it well enough. I saw him have conversations with people around the neighborhood, and none of them ran away screaming. But the nothing was still there. He didn’t say more than two words to me through the whole evening. With his other neighbors, he took pains to pretend to be normal, but I knew exactly what he went through. With me he was himself, and that Sean held the door open for me, offered me his jacket when he thought I was cold, and put himself between me and the drunk, but he wasn’t talking. Whatever he had lived through on Nexus had pushed him outside the normal human life and I wasn’t sure I could pull him back into the light.

“How did you know?” he asked. “I stayed off the inn grounds.”

“The peace summit gave the inn a boost. Gertrude Hunt is spreading its roots and you skimmed the zone of the new growth.” I pushed slightly. The boundary of the inn glowed with pale green for a second and faded again. “That’s the new boundary.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll keep it in mind. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” I pulled the cardigan tighter around myself.

“Just have a feeling, that’s all.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“Like something is going to happen.”

“If something is going to happen, we might as well wait inside.”

And I just invited him in. In the middle of the night. While wearing a cardigan and a Hello Kitty sleeping T-shirt that barely came to my mid-thigh. What exactly was I doing?

“Do you want to come in?” My mouth just kept going. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Brilliant.

An amber sheen rolled over his eyes. “At two o’clock in the morning real men drink coffee. Black.”

He took his coffee with cream. Was that a joke? Please be a joke.

“Aha. And do they wait to drink it until it’s old and bitter and then compare the chest hair growth it produced?”

“Possibly.”

Definitely a joke. Hope sparked inside me. It was tiny, but it was so much better than nothing.

“Well, if any men here would dare to drink a cup of sissy hazelnut coffee with lots of cream, they are welcome to come inside.”

He leaned a little closer. “Are you inviting me in?” His voice held just a touch of suggestion to it.

Suddenly I wasn’t so cold anymore. “Well, you’re already here, it’s freezing, and we can’t just stand here on the balcony and talk. Someone might see us and get the wrong idea.”

Actually, nobody would see us, because it was the middle of the night and if we got in trouble, the inn would screen us from the street.

He leapt off the branch and landed softly next to me. He was so very… tall. And standing too close. And looking at me.

“Wouldn’t people get the wrong idea if they see me sneaking into your house in the middle of the night?”

I opened my mouth, trying to think of something clever to say.

The sky above Park Street split in an electric explosion of yellow lightning and spat a boost bike.

Sean whipped around.

The needle-shaped above ground craft tore down the road a foot above the pavement, its engine roaring loud enough to wake the dead. The windows in the inn vibrated. Car alarms blared down the street.

Oh no.

The deafening blast of sound receded and came back, growing louder. The idiot had turned around and was coming back this way. Sean took off, leaping over the balcony.

“Smother cannon,” I barked.

The roof of the inn split open, the shingles flowing like melted wax, and a three-foot-long cannon barrel slid out.

The boost bike thundered, engine roaring.

Lights came on in the two closest houses. Damn it.

The boost bike shot into my view.

“Fire.”

The cannon made a metallic ting. The lights in the Ramirez residence went out. The lamp post turned dark. The engine of the boost bike died like someone had thrown a switch.

An electromagnetic pulse is a terribly useful thing.

The bike spun, rotating wildly, crashed into a lamppost and bounced off, landing on the pavement, and skidding to a stop. Twenty feet from the inn's boundary. Crap.

In a moment Mr. Ramirez would realize his lights refused to come on and he would do exactly what most men did in this situation. He’d come outside to check if the rest of the neighborhood had lost power. He would see us and the boost bike that clearly didn’t look like it belonged on Earth.

I leapt over the balcony. A massive root snaked out of the ground, catching me, and set me gently on the grass. I dashed to the street, the broom in my hand splitting to reveal its glowing blue insides and flowing into a spear with a hook on the end.

Sean darted to the bike, grabbed the small passenger, and threw him backward toward the inn. Roots snatched him out of the air, the lawn yawned, and they dragged him under. I hooked the boost bike with my spear. Sean grasped the other edge, strained, and we half-dragged, half-carried it to the inn's boundary.

Behind me a door swung open. Sean grunted, I cried out, and we heaved the bike and my broom over the hedge. I spun around and faced the street.

Mr. Ramirez walked out, his Rhodesian Ridgeback, Asad, trailing him.

“Dina,” Mr. Ramirez said. “Are you okay?”

No, I’m not okay. “Some dimwit just drove his bike up and down the street!”

I didn’t even have to manufacture the outrage in my voice. I had outrage to spare. All visitors to Earth had to follow one rule: never let themselves be discovered. That was the entire purpose of the inns. I’d had too many close calls already and as soon as I got inside, the rider of the boost bike would deeply regret it.

“We’re fine,” Sean said.

“This is completely ridiculous.” I waved my arm and pulled the cardigan tighter around myself. “People have to be able to sleep.”

“People have no sense,” Mr. Ramirez said. “My power went out.”

“Looks like he hit a lamppost. Might’ve damaged the power lines,” Sean offered.

Mr. Ramirez frowned. “You might be right.” His eyes narrowed. “Wait. Isn’t your house all the way down the street? What are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sean said. “I went jogging.”

Asad sniffed the metal skid marks on the pavement with obvious suspicion.

“Jogging, huh.” Mr. Ramirez looked at him, then at me, taking in my cardigan and T-shirt, then at Sean again. “At two o’clock in the morning?”

I wished very hard to be invisible.

“Best time to jog,” Sean said. “Nobody bothers me.”

Asad pondered the marks and let out a single loud bark.

“Hey!” Mr. Ramirez turned to him. “What is it, boy?”

It smelled like something inhuman had landed on the pavement, that’s what.

The huge dog put himself between Mr. Ramirez and the marks and broke into a cacophony of barks.

“Hmm. He barely ever barks. I better get him inside. I’m going to file a police report in the morning.” Mr. Ramirez looked at Sean and me one last time and smiled. “Good luck with your jogging.”

No. He didn’t just wish Sean and I happy jogging.

“Come, Asad.”

I shut my eyes tight for a second.

“You okay?” Sean asked.

“Jogging?” I squeezed through clenched teeth. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

“What else was I supposed to tell him? He isn’t going to believe that I woke up out of a dead sleep, got dressed, and ran four hundred yards here in the time it took him to go downstairs and open the door.”

“He thinks we’re sleeping together.”

“So what if we are? We’re adults last time I checked.”

“Tomorrow he’ll talk to Margaret and by afternoon the whole subdivision will be talking about our 'jogging'. I’ll be fielding rumors and questions for a week. I don’t like attention, Sean. It’s bad for my business.”

Sean smiled.

Ugh. I turned around. “Come inside.”

“You sure?” He was grinning now. “People might get the wrong idea.”

“Just come inside,” I growled.

He followed me in.

Inside my front room, the long flexible roots of the inn pinned a creature to the wall. He was about the size of a ten-year-old human child, four-limbed, and wearing a pocketed leather harness from which hung a wide brown cape. A beautiful crest of emerald-green, yellow, and crimson feathers crowned his head. Earth’s evolutionary theory said that feathers evolved from scales and therefore were unlikely to ever appear on the same creature. Nobody mentioned it to the biker, because the rest of him was covered in beautiful green scales, darkening to hunter green on his back and lightening to cream on his throat and chest. A male Ku. I should’ve known.

The Ku were actually reptilian and had more in common with dinosaurs than birds. They lived in tribes and stumbled onto the greater galaxy by accident while they were still in the hunter-gatherer stage. They’d never moved past it. On Earth, climate change combined with the rising population created starvation, which became the catalyst for the development of horticulture, which in turn eventually led to agricultural society and feudalism. The Ku faced no such pressures. They didn’t try to understand the galaxy and the complicated technology of other species. They simply accepted it and learned to use it. Talking rules to a Ku was like reading a modern law brief to a toddler. This one, apparently, decided it would be a great idea to bring his boost bike to our planet and drive up and down Park Street.

“Have you lost your mind?”

The Ku looked at me with round golden eyes.

“This is Earth. You can’t make noise. You can’t ride boost bikes. Humans can’t know. You almost got all of us into big trouble.”

The Ku blinked. His eyes were clear like the summer sky: no thought clouded their depths. I sighed. I wanted to yell at him some more, but it would accomplish nothing.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

He opened his mouth, showing sharp teeth. “Message!”

“Do you have a message for me?”

“Yes!”

Who in all the worlds would send a message by a Ku? Might as well shove it into a bottle and toss it into the ocean. It had about the same chances of reaching its recipient. I held out my hand. The roots released the Ku just enough for his arms to move. He reached into a pocket on his harness, pulled something out, and dropped it into my palm.

A silver necklace with a dolphin pendant. I went cold.

“And this!” The Ku dropped a grimy clump of paper into my hand.

Gingerly I pulled it open. A string of coordinates written in hurried cursive and five words.

In trouble. Come get me.

“Dina?” Sean loomed next to me. “You’ve gone pale.”

“I need a ship.”

“Why?”

“I have to go to Karhari.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “That’s deep in Holy Anocracy territory. What’s on Karhari?”

Karhari was a closed planet. I had no way to access it from the inn, which meant I had to get there the conventional way. I’d have to buy passage from Baha-char. Applying for permits would take forever and they probably wouldn’t be granted, which meant a smuggler and I couldn’t even begin to guess how much time that would cost me…

Sean thrust himself into my view and gently touched my shoulder. I looked up at him.

“Talk to me. What’s on Karhari?”

“My sister.”

2

I stood in my kitchen and tapped my foot. On the wall the communication screen remained dark with a faint blue ring pulsing every few seconds. Last night I had dug into the available information on Karhari. Things were worse than I thought. Karhari wasn’t just closed. It was under a Holy Anocracy restricted travel seal. The Holy Anocracy consisted of aristocratic clans called Houses, each with their separate domain, and only a handful of Houses were permitted to enter Karhari’s atmosphere. Anyone without an appropriate House crest would be shot down. There wouldn’t be time to explain, bribe, or offer apologies. A quick check of my contacts at Baha-char, the galactic bazaar, told me that the entirety of my savings couldn’t buy me entrance. I was reduced to begging.

Maud wouldn’t have asked for my help unless she was in imminent danger. I would beg, offer favors, and promise the moon and sky to save my sister. After I got the Ku settled last night, I had placed a message to Arland of House Krahr. It was late morning now. He hadn’t responded.

Arland and I had a history. He had helped Sean and me to track down the alien assassin, or rather we helped him, since the assassin was here because of the internal politics of House Krahr in the first place. He had also participated in the peace summit, which turned out very well for the Holy Anocracy, in no small part because of me. Technically, I could claim he owed me a favor. Practically, he was the Marshal of a powerful vampire House, who had plenty of responsibilities and probably couldn’t drop them on the spur of the moment.

The waiting for a response was nerve-racking.

A seven-foot-tall darkness loomed next to me. Orro thrust a small plate in front of my nose. I looked down at a small bagel covered with purple jam.

“Eat!”

“Thank you, I’m not hungry.”

Orro’s foot-long spikes rose. He growled. Given that Quillonians resembled terrifying monsters who stood upright, had hands armed with savage claws, muzzles filled with fangs, and backs covered with foot-long black quills, the effect would give any sane human a lifetime of nightmares. I was past caring.

“Eat!”

He wouldn’t give up until I did. I grabbed the bagel and bit into it. Like everything Orro cooked, it tasted like pure heaven. Orro muttered under his breath, waited until I finished the whole bagel, and stalked away.

As a Red Cleaver chef, he should’ve been cooking banquets at the best gourmet restaurants in the galaxy. But an unfortunate poisoning accident left him disgraced. I found him at Baha-char, when he was at the end of his rope, and although his contract with me was finished, he refused to leave. Gertrude Hunt was now his home.

The communication screen was still blinking.

I paced back and forth. Arland was my best bet. If I couldn’t get him to help me, I had no idea where to go next.

Pacing back and forth wasn’t going to get Arland to answer any faster. I stopped and forced myself to turn away. Through the kitchen window, I could see the backyard. The boost bike lay opened on the back patio. Sean was elbow deep in it, while the Ku, whose name was Wing, of all things, pranced around him. Beast cavorted around them, gathering sticks and spitting them at Sean’s feet.

I waved my hand and the inn opened the window, letting the cold air in.

“…Of course the stabilizer failed.”

Sean plucked a weird looking gadget from a tool chest. He’d asked if I had tools and I gave him access to the repair garage. He saw the rows of shelves filled with an assortment of mechanical wonders, swore in appreciation, and then picked out a tool chest.

He reached into the guts of the boost bike, plucked something out, and tossed it on the grass. “That’s what you get for buying spare parts from an Alkonian chop shop.”

“Cheap parts!” Wing volunteered.

“Look, it can be fast, good, or cheap. You can have any two but never all three.”

“Why?”

“It’s the law of the universe.”

When did he learn to fix boost bikes?

Something clicked within the engine. Blue lights ignited on the bike’s dashboard.

Wing raised his hands and emitted a piercing screech. Discretion wasn’t even in his vocabulary.

Behind me the communication screen chimed. I jumped.

“Accept the call.”

Arland’s face filled the screen. Handsome, with a mane of golden hair framing a powerful masculine face and penetrating blue eyes, Arland would’ve stopped traffic at any major intersection. Women would get out of their cars to take a closer look, until he smiled, and then they’d see his fangs and run away screaming.

The Marshal of House Krahr looked splendid in full armor, a deep black shot through with blood-red.

“Lady Dina,” he boomed. “I’m at your command.”

And he’d lost none of his flair for the dramatic. “Are you going to war, Lord Marshal?” Please don’t be going to war.

“No, I was attending a formal dinner.” He grimaced. “They make us wear armor to these things so we don't stab ourselves out of sheer boredom. How might I be of service?”

“I have to go to Karhari. The matter is urgent and I desperately need your help.”

Sean came in and washed his hands at the sink.

“Karhari is the anus of the galaxy.” Arland frowned. “What could you possibly want there?”

“My sister.”

His blond eyebrows crept up. “You have a sister?”

“Yes.”

“What is she doing at Karhari?”

“I don’t know.”

The last time I had heard from Maud was over three years ago, and at the time she was on Noceen, one of the more prosperous of the Holy Anocracy’s planets. Klaus and I had gone to see her when we were searching for Mom and Dad. It was a short visit. Finding out that Mom and Dad had disappeared nearly broke her. She would talk with Mom all the time while my parents’ inn was active, so when communication abruptly ceased, she’d had no idea what had happened. She tried to get passage back to Earth, but her husband was involved in some sort of complicated vampire politics and she couldn’t go. During that meeting, I got a feeling that everything wasn’t going well, but she wouldn’t say what the problem was.

Caldenia entered the kitchen, wearing a beautiful pink robe, and took a seat at the kitchen table. Orro swept by and a plate with a bagel and jam landed in front of Her Grace.

She picked the bagel up, biting into the dough with her unnaturally sharp teeth. When most people bit a bagel, we clamped it down and pulled, tearing it. When Caldenia bit a bagel, there was no clamping down and pulling. Her teeth simply sheared it, as if the dough had been cut with big heavy scissors.

“Lord Arland, my sister sent a message to me asking for help. She isn’t the sort of person to ask for assistance.” In fact, Maud would rather die than ask for help, but she wasn’t willing to gamble with little Helen’s life.

“It’s very important I get to Karhari as soon as possible. Is there any way you could expedite my application for a permit?”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

My heart sank.

“There are no permits being issued for travel to Karhari. As I’ve said, it’s a pit of a planet. Most of it consists of boring plains with large herds of massive herbivores wandering aimlessly through them. There are no good hunting grounds, no great mineral wealth, so it offers very little in the way of value. It was colonized early in the history of the Anocracy and then we lost touch with it for almost five hundred years. The descendants of the original settlers have been cut off for so long that even though the planet was brought back into the Anocracy’s loving embrace a hundred years ago, the rule of law is barely recognized there. It’s the place we send our criminals, exiles, and heretics.”

My sister was stuck in eighteenth century vampire Australia.

“Is there anything that can be done? Anything at all?”

“There is only one thing to do.” He hit me with a dazzling smile, displaying his sharp fangs. “I’ll take you there personally.”

“What?”

“My uncle’s cousin was granted holdings on Karhari, so House Krahr has a presence there. As Marshal, I can travel there any time I wish.”

I almost jumped up and down. Still, my history with House Krahr had been complicated already. And Arland had developed a somewhat seasonal infatuation with me. “Are you sure? The fuel expense must be significant…”

He leaned closer to the screen. “The expense will be minimal. We’ll use the Earth jump gate, bounce off the net here, and will be in Karhari by tomorrow morning. Besides, thanks to you, House Krahr has found itself in a very advantageous position on Nexus. Our profits have soared. I can bounce back and forth between here and Karhari thirty times before the House Steward will gently chide me to keep an eye on the budget. Family is all any of us have. It is decided. Will you be ready in an hour?”

Just like that. “Yes!”

“I shall be in orbit in a few minutes. Is it only you or are you bringing anyone with you?”

“She’s bringing me,” Sean said, stepping next to me.

Arland’s upper lip trembled. He killed it before it became a snarl and peered at Sean. “What happened to your face? Never mind, not important. Your presence isn’t necessary. Lady Dina will have sufficient protection.”

“Is the Marshal threatened by my presence?” Sean asked, his voice calm.

“Hardly.”

“Then I see no reason why I can’t come along.”

“Karhari isn’t Earth, werewolf. You’ve never fought a vampire in open combat. You aren’t ready for a planet full of us.”

What?

Sean’s face was calm. “As you said, the rule of law is barely recognized on Karhari. I should be right at home.”

Arland struggled with it for a moment. “Fine. I’m not one to keep a man away from a funeral pyre when he’s jumping over obstacles to get to it. We shall meet in an hour.”

The screen went black.

Never fought a vampire… That made no sense. When Sean led the Merchants’ defense on Nexus, he slaughtered enough vampires for several lifetimes. That’s what the peace summit was about. The Holy Anocracy, the Hope-Crushing Horde, and the Merchants of Baha-Char had fought over rights to Nexus, a mineral rich planet. Sean had led the Merchants’ forces as Turan Adin, an immortal general in dark armor. It turned out that Turan Adin was very much mortal. The Merchants had been going through mercenaries, and every time one died, they picked out his replacement and put him back in the armor. Sean turned out to be the last and the best. He lasted longer than anyone would have expected, but the war on Nexus was killing him from the inside out. To save him and convince the three factions to agree to peace, I had linked them all, Sean and myself included, to the inn. We had shared memories. Arland was there.

“Arland doesn’t know. How can he not know you were Turan Adin? You shared Nexus memories with the rest of us.”

Sean frowned. “When I think back to it, I don’t know which memories were his. I don’t think he knows which ones were mine. When you linked us, you asked only about things that happened on Nexus. I was always Turan Adin on Nexus. The armor never came off. I thought of myself as Turan Adin. I left Sean here on Earth with you.”

The werewolves of Auul were poets. Sometimes I forgot that, and then he said something like that.

“Will you tell him?”

Sean shook his head. “If I do, he’ll try to kill me.”

“Why?”

“We met in battle once. I had a chance to kill him, and I didn’t. He knows that.”

Arland was a proud man. Sean was right; he wouldn’t be able to handle it. Then again, having Sean near Arland wouldn’t be doing wonders for Sean’s recovery either.

“Are you sure you want to come?”

He looked at me for a minute. “I’m going to pick up some equipment. Don’t leave without me.”

“And if I do?”

“I’ll have to chase you in my ship and blow the galaxy’s existence wide open. Please don’t leave without me.”

He headed out the door.

I crossed my arms and looked at Caldenia. “Does everyone have an interstellar ship except us?”

“You should get one.” She licked the jam from the corner of her mouth. “We do have to keep up with the Joneses, my dear.”

* * *

Being catapulted into orbit by the summoning gate was about as fun as riding one of those towering carnival rides without restraints. It made you want to vomit and you were one hundred percent certain that you were going to die. Logic said that only three seconds passed from the point Sean and I stepped into the blood-red glow until the moment we landed in the transport bay of Arland’s ship, but it felt like much longer. I blinked, adjusting my backpack on my shoulders. Arland estimated that the entire trip would only take two days, and I had packed light.

Sean had packed heavy. A large military-style duffel bag, packed to the breaking point, rested on his back. He carried a smaller duffel. I had a feeling that the smaller duffel was the one with his clothes. He scanned our surroundings like we were in enemy territory.

I looked around, too. Gray square stones lined the floor under my feet. Similar stones climbed the hundred-foot-tall bulkhead of the huge chamber around us. Long vines with narrow pale green leaves dripped from the stones, their delicate pink flowers spicing the air with a gentle aroma. The crimson banners of House Krahr stretched over the walls. In the middle of the chamber a beautiful old tree with black bark spread its massive branches with wide green leaves and crimson blossoms. A stream rushed through an artificial river bed, falling in an artful cascade of small waterfalls and winding under the arches of the tree’s roots. The illusion of standing in the courtyard of a vampire castle was so complete, I could barely believe we were on a spaceship.

I glanced at Sean. “Extravagant.”

He shrugged. “It’s space. No friction means little need for aerodynamics.”

“But mass is still a factor.” The heavier the ship, the longer it took to accelerate and decelerate and the more fuel it required.

“Vampires,” Sean said, the way parents usually said “teenagers” when their children were out of earshot.

A door slid open in the far wall and Arland appeared, in full armor, moving briskly toward us. The sight of a vampire in syn-armor was impressive. Arland had taken it up a notch. He didn’t walk, he strode, like a tiger within his domain.

“Look,” Sean said under his breath. “He’s making an entrance.”

Keeping the two of them civil would prove a challenge. “He’s doing me a big favor. Do you think you could refrain from baiting him for the duration of this trip?”

“I’ll try. But it’s going to be difficult.”

A female vampire, also in full armor, ran up to Arland and thrust some high tech tablet under his face. Arland waved her off and marched on.

“Very difficult,” Sean said.

“Try harder,” I murmured, trying to keep a friendly expression on my face. “I’m sure you can do it.”

“My deepest apologies.” Arland hit me with a dazzling smile. “I was held up by the petty minutia of House matters.”

“No apologies necessary,” I told him. “Thank you so much for your help. I’m deeply grateful.”

Arland turned to Sean and narrowed his eyes. “That’s a lot of hardware.”

They must’ve scanned Sean’s big duffel.

“Better to be prepared.”

“Where did you get the weapons?”

“I have my ways,” Sean said.

“I’m watching you,” Arland told him.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

And that’s just about enough. “Lord Arland, it’s so kind of you to lend us your ship.”

He smiled. “It’s my pleasure. Please, this way, Lady Dina.”

Arland held out his arm bent at the elbow. I was on the grounds of House Krahr. When in a vampire ship… I rested my hand on his forearm just below his wrist. He didn’t shoot Sean a triumphant glance but his expression told me he wanted to. We strolled down the path around the tree to the exit.

“I must ask your forgiveness. While this is my personal vessel, humble as it may be, it is still of military purpose and by necessity of function is spartan in appearance.”

I caught a glimpse of Sean’s face. His expression was completely neutral.

“It’s very beautiful, my lord.”

“It pleases me immensely that you like it. It is home away from home, so to speak.”

We passed through the doors into the hallway.

“I’m curious, how will the inn fare without you?” Arland asked.

I had avoided thinking about the inn for almost three minutes. He had just broken my winning streak.

“My sister provided me with exact coordinates. With luck, she will be waiting for us, so we should only be gone for a short while. The inn can take care of itself.” Assuming Officer Marais didn’t come snooping, Caldenia didn’t murder anyone because she found them appetizing, Orro didn’t have a nervous breakdown because he couldn’t buy groceries for two days, and if all of them plus Beast managed to keep their cool, the inn should be fine. I hoped. At least Wing had checked out before I left. He asked for the nearest inn, and I sent him to Brian Rodriguez near Dallas with strict instructions to not take any detours.

Mr. Rodriguez ran Casa Feliz, one of the largest, best known inns in the entire southwest. He used to be friends with my parents. We, the innkeepers, were a reclusive, paranoid lot. Interactions between us were rare, unless two inns happened to be close together and the innkeepers were friends. Most of our business ran on a handshake and communications took place in person or via encrypted channels. In a show of great trust, Mr. Rodriguez had given me his personal cell phone number and I had used it a couple of times to ask him for advice. He was the reason Orro huffed and puffed in the kitchen. His staff would be able to handle a Ku without any issues.

“I have looked at the coordinates you’ve given me,” Arland said. “According to our records, this place is a Road Lodge, a tavern and an inn in the middle of nowhere where travelers stay for a night or two before continuing on their way elsewhere. The type of hovel that attracts convoy raiders, bandits, and other characters of ill repute.”

Maud knew how to blend in.

“As unpleasant as this possibility might be, I must ask what will happen if your sister isn’t there.”

“She will be there.”

“Your faith in your family is to be commended,” he said. “We may encounter resistance.” He said that the way most people would say, “We may encounter chocolate cake. With frosting!”

“I’m sure we will.” If there was no resistance, Maud wouldn’t be hiding in some hellhole.

“In the event of such an occurrence, I once again offer you my full support. Allow me to be your shield, Lady Dina. For you and your sister.”

“Thank you, Lord Arland.”

I had no idea how Maud’s husband would react to that. Melizard was the second son of the Marshal of House Ervan. Here is hoping no ancient feuds existed between House Ervan and House Krahr or things would get awkward.

The door in front of us opened and we walked into an observation room. Two hundred and seventy degrees of transparent glass beyond which the galaxy stretched in all its glory, the distant nebulae in a hundred colors swirling among the stars. Tables and booths dotted the floor. Arland turned and led me up a staircase to the balcony, where a long table waited for us, filled to the brim with food, most of which seemed to be various cuts of meat.

“Of course, the skills of my chef cannot match your Quillonian, but I don’t believe you’ll be disappointed.” Arland pulled out my chair. “Please.”

I took it. A gentle melody, at once soothing and haunting, floated down to us from some invisible speakers. To my left Sean rolled his eyes.

This was going to be an interesting trip.

* * *

Arland was right. Karhari truly was the anus of the galaxy and I was getting an eyeful of it from my seat in Arland’s landing shuttle. Flat, dry, ugly, the planet stretched for miles without any reprieve for the eye. Its soil was brown, the plants that grew on it were greenish-brown, and the bur, the giant herbivores that moved through the plains like shaggy boulders, were also brown. I’d shoot myself within two days of living here.

Arland’s family crest granted him the right to enter Karhari airspace, but the Road Lodge sat far outside of his relative’s lands. Technically it was within a different House’s territory, a local House. Arland had planned to land with a squad of his soldiers, but the local House shot that idea down. Words like “invasion”, “provocation”, and “armed excursion” were thrown around. After tense negotiations, Arland won the right to bring a single shuttle and two people. I had to be one of them, because Maud wouldn’t trust anyone but me, and I had insisted that Sean was the other.

Back when we met, during his first trip to Baha-char, Sean had found a shop run by a veteran werewolf. The shop had contained a special armor made specifically for an alpha-strain werewolf like him. When he put it on, the armor became a part of his body. Normally he kept it relegated into tattoos just under his skin, but right now it was out, sheathing his body like a black jumpsuit. I caught a glimpse of it under the collar of his loose T-shirt when he’d climbed into the flier.

The agreement Arland made specified that none of us could carry ranged combat weapons. The list of what we couldn’t bring was quite long and axed most of everything Sean had in his duffel. Sean and Arland had a long conversation about it and the vampire House politics, at the end of which they concluded that we were being set up but that they had it handled.

The bleak terrain rolled outside the shuttle’s window. Why, Maud? Why Karhari? What happened to the castle? Was little Helen with her or did she somehow get here by herself? The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became. Neither Arland nor Sean asked me why my sister might be in this hellhole, and for that I was grateful.

“There it is.” Arland pointed to a dark rectangular structure.

Put together from prefab hard plastic and studded with five-foot spikes, the Road Lodge looked about as hospitable as the raider fortress from Mad Max. I pulled my gray travel robe tighter around myself. So far from the inn my power was much weaker, so I brought something from the days Klaus and I had zigzagged across the galaxy trying to find my parents.

I hadn’t heard from Klaus for so long. I didn’t even know where my brother was.

“You sure you don’t want a knife?” Sean asked. He’d offered me one twice already.

“No, thank you.”

“Lady Dina will be perfectly safe in my presence,” Arland said.

Sean gave him a cold stare and settled back into his seat.

Lady Dina would be safe in her own presence. I checked the glove on my left hand. It was more of a gauntlet than a glove and it looked like several layers of latex gloves were fused together with superglue and then dipped in wax. It was made to the mold of my hand from the hardened spit of a rare alien animal. Despite its thickness, it was surprisingly flexible, but I wanted it off all the same. It wasn’t the glove. It was the memories of what I did when I wore the glove and the anticipation of what I might have to do that made my skin crawl.

Hopefully, we would just get there, pick up Maud and whoever was with her, and get out, quick and quiet. Quick and quiet.

I swallowed. My heart was speeding up and I needed to calm down fast. Vampires were like cats; if it moved, they swatted it and if I walked into that place agitated, they would zero in on me. I didn’t want to attract attention.

“What could the locals gain by setting you up?” I asked Arland.

“A war with House Krahr on this planet. Since they’re a local House they likely have no idea of our capabilities. They probably want my uncle’s cousin’s land. Or perhaps they want to claim that I attacked them, so that they can demand financial compensation.” He grinned at me. “Either way, it will be exciting.”

The Road Lodge grew as we neared it. Sean pulled on a dark gray windbreaker and pulled the hood over his face.

Arland circled the Lodge and landed on a landing strip, next to a couple dozen different vehicles. The shuttle’s door swung open and I climbed out into the dirt.

Hold on, Maud. I’m almost there.

Sean landed next to me. Arland was last. He’d put on a dark cloak with a deep hood. The draped fabric hid most of him, but did nothing to obscure the fact that he was wearing armor. He tossed something into the air. With a quiet whir, a small gray sphere the size of a pecan hovered above us.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Insurance,” Arland said. “It projects a feed to the shuttle. Whatever happens, I require a record of it. Follow me.”

He headed for the entrance. We followed.

The door slid open at our approach and we stepped inside. A purple light slid over us - a weapon scan. Arland’s camera passed through it without setting off any alarms and rose toward the ceiling.

A cavernous room spread before us with a long bar counter on the right side and a mass of tables and booths on the left. A big metal cage on the left, just by the door, held an assortment of firearms secured by a metal lock. Judging by the ring of dead insects near it, it was electrified. Right. A leave your gun at the door kind of place.

A staircase in the middle of the dining area led upstairs, probably to the guest rooms. Big shaggy heads of bur bulls, horned and tusked, decorated the walls. Vampires of every age and size occupied the booths and the chairs, most cloaked and all armored. Here and there an odd alien nursed some weird drink, watching the other patrons with wary eyes. The scent of mint and the deep, nutty odor of caffeine-laden vampire liquor hung in the air.

Not a single banner. Dust on the floor, grime on the tables. The contrast between the pristine beauty of Arland’s vessel and this place was startling. The Holy Anocracy, with its laws and rules, was very far away.

Nobody turned and looked at us as we came in, but they watched us, the weight of their gazes cold and pressing down right between my shoulders blades. None of the people looked like Maud.

I sat at the bar. A vampire woman, her armor dented and having seen much better days, stopped by me. “What will it be?”

“Mint tea.” I dropped credit chips on the counter. My mother always told me to keep common currency on hand, even if only a small amount, and I had raided my stash for this trip.

She swiped the chips off the bar and looked at the two men next to me.

“I’ll have what she is having,” Sean said.

“None for me.”

The cloak’s hood hid most of Arland’s face, but judging by the curve of his mouth, he could barely contain his disgust.

The tea arrived in semi-clean cups. I sipped the tea and took my hood down. Here I am.

Nothing. If Maud was here, she was waiting. I kept drinking my tea.

“Big guy on the left,” Sean said quietly into his cup.

“I see him,” Arland said.

A huge vampire, his face cleaved by a ragged scar, rose from one of the tables on the left and started toward us. He was older than Arland by at least a couple of decades. A mane of dark hair hung loose down his back, and judging by the greasy look of it, if his hair had ever known what shampoo was, it had surely forgotten by now. Scuffs, dents, and gouges marked his armor, its original black luster lost beyond repair. A sword hung from his waist, not the typical blood weapon of the Anocracy’s warriors, but a savage-looking hacking blade.

He stopped a few feet from Arland. “You’re not from around here.”

“Such keen powers of observation,” Arland said.

“Your armor is clean. Pretty. Do you know what we do to pretty boys like you here?”

“Is there a script?” Arland asked him. “Do you give the speech to all who enter here, because if so, I suggest we skip the talking.”

The vampire roared, baring his fangs.

“A challenge.” Arland smiled. “I love challenges.”

The bigger vampire went for his sword. Arland punched him in the jaw. The other vampire flew a few feet and crashed into a booth that conveniently broke his fall.

He jumped to his feet and charged, sword in hand. Arland ducked under his swing and hammered a short brutal punch to the vampire’s ribs. A loud crack sounded, like a dozen firecrackers going off at once, as the armor split along some invisible seam. Arland grasped the protruding edge of the breastplate and jerked it up. The armor crunched on itself, collapsing. The older vampire tumbled to the ground, his right arm immobilized, his left bare.

“Nice,” Sean said.

“If one is going to wear armor, one must properly maintain it,” Arland said.

The older vampire tried to rise. Arland waited until he got halfway up and kneed him in the face. Blood poured from the vampire’s face. Arland kicked him. The attacker collapsed and lay still.

“Anyone else?” Arland asked.

Seven vampires rose at once.

“Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Sean said, pulling a large knife with a dark green curved blade from the sheath on his waist.

“Might as well get it over with.” Arland ripped off his cloak and tossed it aside. His face wrinkled in an ugly snarl, showing his fangs.

Five more vampires stood up. This wouldn’t end well.

“Stay behind me,” Sean told me.

A figure in a tattered brown cloak jumped onto the table behind the vampires, jerked a blood sword and a dagger out, dashed to the nearest standing vampire, and sliced his head off.

The vampires roared.

The swordsman sprinted through the room, running on the tables, slicing and cutting like a whirlwind. Everyone moved at once. People screamed, pulling weapons, and overturning tables. Some ran to the back, others charged us. Sean sprinted forward, carving his way through the attackers.

A vampire grabbed the swordsman’s tattered cloak and jerked at it. The cloak came free, revealing Maud in syn-armor, her short blue-black hair flying. She dropped to her knees on the table and buried her dagger in his throat. Blood sprayed her face. She pulled the dagger out with a short jerk, rolled on the table, just as another vampire shattered it with a blow of his blood mace, and sliced across his face with her sword.

Next to me Arland stood frozen.

I reached over and pushed his mouth shut. “Arland!”

He stared at me, as if waking up from a dream.

I pointed at Maud. “Help my sister!”

For a stunned half-second he stared at me, and then he pulled out his blood mace, roared, and tore into the mass of bodies like a raging bull.

I slipped the handle of the energy whip into my right hand and squeezed it. A thin flexible filament slid from it, dripping to the floor. There was Maud. There was Sean and Arland. Where was little Helen?

I moved forward, picking my way through the fight to where Maud had originally jumped. A female vampire charged at me, her mouth opened, her hammer raised for the kill.

Sean hurled his attacker aside and turned toward me.

I flicked my wrist. The filament ignited with bright yellow and the energy whip sliced at the oncoming vampire. She howled, the deep gash that nearly sliced her chest in two instantly cauterized. I flicked the whip again - she wouldn’t recover from this injury anyway - and her head rolled off. That was the problem with an energy whip. A wound to the torso almost always meant a slow and painful death.

I kept moving.

A chair flew at me. I ducked and ran straight into a male vampire. He grabbed me, jerking my neck to his mouth. I grasped the end of the whip with my left hand - the glove was the only thing it wouldn’t cut - and pushed the stretched whip through the vampire’s face. It cut straight through the helmet and bone, and the top half of the vampire’s skull slid to the floor. The body crashed, with me on top of it. I rolled to the side, under a table, scrambled on my hands and knees and saw a small shape under another table in the distance.

“Helen!”

The small creature under the table turned toward me. Found you.

I crawled from under the table. In front of me vampires clashed, all local - whenever there was a big fight, people settled personal scores. I flicked my whip, lengthening it. It made a sharp electric crack. Once you heard it, you never forgot it. Suddenly the floor before me was clear. I ran through the opening, dropped to my knees, and pulled Helen from under the table. She clutched at me, a five-year-old girl with pale hair and the round green eyes of a vampire.

“Aunt Dina!”

She remembered me! “I’ve got you.”

I scrambled up, supporting her weight with my left arm. A vampire rushed us. Helen hissed, pulled out a knife, and swiped at him. He leaned out of the way, his axe swinging toward us. Sean thrust himself in front of me, catching the axe in mid blow. The vampire strained. Sean sliced at him, the green blade cutting through armor like a sharp knife through a pear.

“Follow me.”

I chased him through the slaughter. Midway to the door Maud appeared next to me, her blades bloody.

“Arland!” Sean roared, his voice covering the din of fighting.

I turned and saw the Marshal, covered in blood, bellowing like a bull, as his mace reduced armors and bones to a bloody pulp.

“Arland!” Sean yelled again.

The Marshal saw us and turned, following. We tore out of the front door and ran to the slick black shuttle. The doors swung open - Arland must’ve activated the remote - and Sean leaped into the pilot seat and started flipping switches.

Maud climbed into the passenger seat and I handed Helen to her.

A clump of vampires pushed out the door. It fell apart, revealing Arland snarling, fangs bared. He swung his mace and cracked one attacker’s skull, grabbed another by his throat with his left hand, snapped his neck, and threw him aside like a rag doll. Maud’s eyebrows crept up. She paused for a second, while sliding Helen into the seat restraints. “Who the hell is that?”

“The Lord Marshal of House Krahr.”

I landed into the seat next to her.

Arland brained the last attacker, ran to the shuttle, and jumped into the seat next to Sean. The tiny camera zipped into the cabin behind him.

A screaming crowd exploded out of the doors and ran for the shuttle.

“Do you even know how to fly, werewolf?” Arland barked.

“Buckle up.” Sean pulled a lever.

The shuttle streaked into the sky.

My sister hugged her daughter to her.

“What happened? Where is Melizard? Where is your husband?”

“Melizard is dead,” Maud said, her eyes haunted. “He led a revolt against his House. They stripped him of all titles and possessions and sent us to Karhari. Eight months ago he crossed the wrong local and the raiders killed him.”

“We killed them back,” Helen told me.