Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 2) (17 page)

He shook his head. “Lark…”

“The name is Sophie,” she corrected.

“What is here? This?” He turned, raising his hands to encompass the flowers.

“Here I am not a monster.” She raised her head. “Here I do not kill anyone. I am at peace here.”

“Your peace is a lie.”

She glared at him and I fought an urge to step back. “You have no right to tell me how to live my life. Let me be. Leave me alone, George. I want to be at peace!”

“You are not meant to be at peace. We, the human beings, we are meant to live life to its fullest. We are meant to experience it all, sadness, disappointment, rage, kindness, joy, love. We are meant to test ourselves. It is painful and frightening, but this is what it means to be alive. You are hiding from life here. This isn’t peace. This is a slow deliberate suicide.”

He stabbed his cane into the pathway. Images exploded: a vast roiling nebula, spaceships, planets, ancient ruins, strange buildings, terrible and beautiful beings… They spun around us, vivid, bright, loud…. Sophie looked at them and stars reflected in her eyes.

“Look at it!” George’s voice shuddered with barely contained awe. “
Look
at it! Don’t you want to experience it? Don’t you want to be brave? You are not a gentle flower who spends its whole life in a greenhouse. You are a wildfire, Lark. A wildfire.”

A sun burst on the images, its violent fury drowning the cosmos.

“Dare to take that step and I will show you wonders beyond your imagination. I will give you a chance to make a difference. Come with me.” George offered his hand to her. “Live. Join me or not, but live, gods damn you, because I cannot stand the thought of you slowly aging here like some dusty fossil under glass. Take my hand and bring your sword. The Universe is waiting.”

We entered the inn twenty minutes before the start of the summit. Jack greeted us in the front room. A wide grin split his face.

He looked Sophie up and down, scrutinizing her gown and the two swords she carried in her hands. “What is it you’re wearing? Are you trying to be mistaken for a girl?”

Sophie arched her eyebrows and punched him in the arm.

“What was that for?”

“That was for leaving without telling anyone good-bye.”

I turned to George, who was carrying Sophie’s large canvas bag. “You can set that down.”

He carefully placed the bag on the floor and it sank into the wood. Sophie’s eyes widened.

“Come with me, please,” I told her. “I will show you to your room.”

I led her down the east hallway. The best place would be near Caldenia, in the neutral wing. I had already explained the inn and the rules of being a guest. “I am going to put you next to a permanent guest of the inn.”

“You’re irritated with George,” Sophie said. “Why?”

I blinked.

“Don’t feel bad. You hid it very well, but I’ve been trained to read body language.”

I sighed. “I have less than fifteen minutes with you. I have to be there when the summit starts. Welcoming a guest to the inn is a duty innkeepers hold sacred. It must be done properly, but George left me no time. I hate to rush.”

Caldenia stepped out of her room. “Another guest? How delightful.”

“Her Grace, Caldenia ka ret Magren,” I said.

Sophie dropped into an elegant curtsy and rose.

Caldenia’s eyes sparkled. “And what is your name, my dear?”

“Sophie.”

“Just Sophie?”

Sophie smiled. “For now.”

“Are you going to view the summit?” Caldenia asked.

“I was considering it.”

“You absolutely must visit me. I have an entire balcony to myself.”

“I would be delighted,” Sophie said.

“It is settled then.” Her Grace smiled and proceeded down the hallway, her gown flaring behind her with regal majesty.

I paused before the door. Normally I would have offered her some refreshments and spoken with her in the front room, slowly building her room based on her responses. There was no time. I had to guess. Argh. What would Sophie like? She held herself with a kind of measured poise that seemed natural but was probably the result of years of etiquette training and education. Caldenia had picked up on it immediately. They were from different worlds but they likely moved in similar circles, those of aristocratic educated women. When I looked at her, I pictured her in a Southern mansion, all white colonnades and plush furniture, but something didn’t seem quite right. So, clean and elegantly muted furnishings in a traditional style or tastefully elaborate pattern medley of English countryside?

“She isn’t human, is she?” Sophie asked.

“No.”

“Her teeth are sharp and pointed.”

“She is very dangerous,” I said. There was something about Sophie behind all of that polish and refinement, a kind of hidden fragility. Perhaps fragility was the wrong word. Brittleness, like a blade that was too sharp. No, neither clean and elegant nor elaborate. Damn it, George. I had to commit to something. I couldn’t just stand there before the door.

Go with your gut feeling. That’s what Mom always said.

“Caldenia will do nothing to harm you, because the inn is her refuge and she knows that attacking another guest, unless it was done in self-defense, would violate our agreement. She is very manipulative, however.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Sophie said.

I opened the door. Golden pine floors stretched to the wooden walls painted with a gentle beige. I left the wall framing exposed, as if all of the insulation had been stripped out. A simple but comfortable bed, built with rough Louisiana cypress, offered a thick mattress in a sturdy frame, plush white covers, and plump pillows. A beige woven rug, none too new, shielded the floor. Pale green curtains framed two wide windows, offering a view of the orchard. Between them a door permitted access to a long wooden balcony. A roughly hewn bookshelf in the corner held several paperbacks. A weapon rack waited next to the bookshelf, ready to receive swords.

Rustic modern. I had no idea why I went that way, but it felt right.

I turned to Sophie and almost stepped back. She looked shocked.

Damn it, she hated it. What was I thinking? Mixing pine and cypress, it didn’t even make sense…

“Would you like a different room?”

“No,” Sophie said quietly. “No, this is perfect.”

The floor parted and her bag surfaced.

“As part of the Arbiter’s personnel, you have access to most of the inn,” I said. “If you would like to join us on the main floor, turn right and go down two flights of stairs. If you would prefer to join Her Grace, turn left, make another left at the next hallway and keep walking until you reach a large grey door.”

“Thank you.”

“If you need any information, just ask the inn. Gertrude Hunt will extend you every possible courtesy.”

Five minutes until summit. I badly needed to go to the bathroom before I got down there.

Sophie brushed the wood of the sword stand with her fingertips. “It all comes full circle, doesn’t it?”

I had no idea what she meant by that, so I listened.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Sophie said. “Do you believe in destiny, Dina?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because six years ago something took my parents. It ripped them out of my life and made them disappear. I can’t believe that after everything they’ve gone through and everything they have done, that would be their destiny. I refuse to let their existence be erased. We make our own choices in life. Our actions shape our lives and we alone are responsible for them.”

“I hope you find them,” Sophie said.

“I will.”

A wallop of magic resonated through the inn and my head. I turned to the wall. “Outer perimeter.”

A container the size of a house sat in the field on the edge of my orchard. A stylized symbol of the Arbitration, the scales with two weights in the balance glowing gently with white, marked it. What now?

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Of course.”

I left Sophie to her own devices and went downstairs.

George met me at the foot of the stairs.

“What are you planning?” I asked, as we turned toward the grand ballroom.

“Just a small demonstration for the public good,” he said. “I am so sorry.”

“You’re apologizing in advance.”

“Yes.”

Never a good sign.

***

We were three hours into the session. The vampires looked mercilessly bored. The merchants gathered in a circle around one of the older foxes, who was explaining something that required waving of paws and twitching of ears. Some of the otrokari abandoned all pretense at politeness and stretched out on the floor. One of the larger older otrokar warriors was snoring. A couple of younger ones watched him, exchanging speculative glances. If they pulled out the  interstellar equivalent of a magic marker and started drawing penises on his forehead, I would have to step in.

I should’ve brought a book, except I wouldn’t be able to read it. I had to watch the lot of them. I glanced up to the balcony where Caldenia and Sophie seemed engaged in some entertaining discussion. I wished I could be up there. Anything was better than this boredom.

Magic wailed in my head, emanating from the far side of the orchard. Here we go.

The opaque partition separating the leaders of the factions slid down and George stepped out, his face concerned, the top of his cane glowing. “My sincerest apologies!”

Everyone dropped what they were doing and turned to him.

“Would you care to explain this?” I asked.

“I’m afraid one of our Sentinel guard units is malfunctioning.” George’s face was the definition of apologetic regret.

“You brought a Sentinel unit here?” The Khanum’s eyebrows crept up.

“Only for emergencies, I assure you.” George turned to me. “Could I trouble you for a visual?”

I turned to the left wall. “Visual of the orchard, please.”

The wall glowed, presenting the image of the orchard. The Arbiter’s container lay shattered. A wide strip of plowed earth cut through the field, veering to the brush, where trees lay snapped. The sound of wood snapping echoed through the ballroom. A dark blur dashed behind the trees, dirt flew, and a huge metal contraption shot into the open. It looked like three complex frames of black metal, each a foot thick and bearing armored panels revolving over each other, all anchored by a glowing blue ball in the center about six feet wide. The Sentinel hovered in place for a brief second. Bladed chains shot out of it. The Sentinel spun like a dervish, the blades barely three feet from the nearest apple trees.

No. He wouldn’t dare.

Two feet. George gave me an apologetic smile.

The blade chipped the bark.
No, no, no…

The Sentinel veered left. The blade passed cleanly through the apple trunk.

He didn’t.

The tree collapsed with an ear-splitting crack.

He was out of his mind. “Lord Camarine,” I growled.

“This is simply dreadful,” George said. “My deepest, sincerest apologies.”

The second tree fell. I raised my broom. Demonstration or not, he would regret this.

“No, no, please. We’ll take care of it. I insist.” He glanced up to the balcony. “Sophie, would you mind?”

Sophie rose and left the balcony.

He chopped down my apple trees. He would pay for this.

“A human?” Arland asked. “You are sending a human against that?”

Robart pointed at the Sentinel, which had veered away from the orchard, and was spinning in the field. “That is a Class 6 mass casualty guard unit. This thing is designed to be nearly indestructible. It will take concentrated laser fire or KPSM to take it down.”

“KPSM?” I was too mad to keep the fury out of my voice.

“Kinetic Projectile of Significant Mass,” Robart said.

“He means a giant chunk of metal launched from a cannon of a spaceship in orbit,” Lady Isur told me.

Sophie appeared on the screen, walking through the orchard, still wearing her grey gown and carrying a sword in a sheath in her left hand. Her expression was resigned, her eyes sad. The Sentinel was a full twenty feet in diameter, bigger with chains and blades out. She was barely five and a half feet tall. Even if she was the best swordwoman in the history of the universe, it was like trying to stop a semi barreling down the highway with a toothpick.

“This is suicide.” Dagorkun glanced at his mother. “I can take a squad right now. Give us twenty minutes, we’ll turn it into scrap metal.”

The Khanum’s eyes narrowed. She raised her hand and Dagorkun fell silent.

“We are in a residential neighborhood,” I ground out. “There is a limit to how long I can hide this. I’m going to take care of it.”

George shot me a warning glance. “Please. It’s my mess. Let me clean it up.”

Sophie bend down, picked up the hem of her gown and ripped the fabric to mid-thigh.

The Sentinel sighted her. Its metal frames slid against each other. Spikes sprung up, shielding the panels. The blue glow pulsed and the Sentinel shot toward Sophie, an enormous, furious multi-ton tornado of razor sharp metal.

Sophie leaned forward slightly on her toes.

She was going to get run over. The Sentinel would splatter her on my apple trees. I squeezed my broom.

George was watching Sophie with an odd look on his face.

The Sentinel barreled at her. A chain shot out with a foot-wide black blade on the end.

Sophie moved.