The Marshal picked up Officer Marais as if the fully grown man was a child, put him in the backseat, and slid into the passenger seat. I started the engine, put the car in reverse, and drove backward slowly. The walls slipped out of the way. A moment later and we slid into my driveway, the rear of the car facing the street. I killed the engine and sat quietly, listening. This plan hinged on having no witnesses.
It was ten past midnight, and the subdivision lay silent. I eased the cruiser into neutral and let the slight incline of the driveway do the rest. Whisper-quiet, the police car rolled out of the driveway, across the street, and down Camelot Road. I gently steered it back to the spot where Marais had parked before the whole affair started and pulled with my magic. I only had a fraction of my power outside the inn’s boundaries, but a fraction would be enough.
The air next to the driver’s window shimmered, and the Eye materialized out of thin air behind and a little to the right of the car, its outer shell, once silver, now swirling with the perfect reflection of the road. I was off by three feet.
“Stop recording,” I told it. “Erase last ten minutes. Project position.”
The Eye emitted a pale beam of greenish light that snapped into a holographic projection of the dashboard camera. I slowly slid the car in place, trying to match it. It took me three tries. Officer Marais liked to park very close to the curb. Finally the real dashboard camera and the holographic projection matched.
“Home,” I told the Eye. It landed in my hand and ejected the SD card. I slid it back into the dashboard cam.
The neighborhood was still empty. Great. Nobody had noticed my late-night maneuvering. I stepped out of the car and nodded to Arland. He exited the vehicle, picked up Officer Marais, and sat him in the driver’s seat. I locked his seat belt in place, reached through the open window, careful to stay away from any mirrors, and pushed Record on the camera. We quietly moved to the side and went deeper into the subdivision.
“What are we doing?” Arland murmured, looming next to me.
“We’re going to make a big circle and come into the inn through the back so the camera doesn’t see us.”
“Won’t there be a break in recording?”
I shook my head. “The Eye recorded over four hours of video and then looped it into seven hours of footage, using a random algorithm complete with a false time stamp. It overwrote your arrival completely. Right now the real dashboard camera is recording over that video. By the time he wakes up, the tail end of the looped footage will be overwritten with the real video as well. When Officer Marais watches it, he will see hours and hours of the inn sitting there with no activity.”
The only indication of foul play might be the slight jump in the view of the camera. The Eye had analyzed the footage on the SD card and had positioned itself to match the view precisely, but it was very difficult to match the position of the car. Given more time, I probably could’ve gotten closer, but sooner or later someone would notice me inside the police cruiser.
“Clever,” Arland said.
Yes, clever and very expensive. The remote camera had cost me a lot of money and a favor that had been difficult to repay.
We turned right on Bedivere Road.
“Dina,” Arland said. His voice had a slightly rough quality to it. Not Lady Dina, but Dina. He was up to something. That wasn’t good.
“Yes?”
“I’m but a humble soldier.”
Here we go. He had given me a version of this speech before. This definitely wasn’t good.
“You and I, we have a history.”
Okay, what could he possibly be upset about?
“We were comrades-in-arms, fighting at each other’s side for the common goal. We have broken bread together.”
Was this about the food? Was he upset that we didn’t serve red meat at dinner? But we’d told them not to expect a big meal the first day because separate meals would be served in their quarters. We wouldn’t set up the big dinner until tomorrow.
“That kind of connection, it stays with you.”
Was he offended because I let the otrokars fire a weapon? Was it because the otrokars were scheduled to be the first to arrive to the inn and the vampires were last? But we had compensated the Holy Anocracy by inviting them to be the first to officially enter the ballroom.
“Dina…”
He dipped his head and looked into my eyes. A small shiver ran down my spine. Arland had focused completely on me. His face was handsome, but his eyes were breathtaking. Deep, intense blue, they usually communicated power or aggression, but right then they were warm, softened by emotion until they seemed almost velvet. He reached over and took my hand into his, the calluses on his strong fingers scraping against my skin.
I realized we had stopped under an oak by some house. The night was suddenly very small, and Arland had filled it completely.
I had left my broom at the inn. It was just me, the darkness, and the vampire knight.
He held my hand, running his thumb over my fingers. “I want to know what I have done to offend you. Whatever blunder I committed, I will strive to remedy it.”
It would help so much if I knew what he was talking about. The way he looked at me made it difficult to concentrate.
“Tell me.” He was standing too close. His voice was too intimate. And he was still looking at me with that warmth, as if I were someone special. “What may I do to get back into your good graces?”
He stroked my hand. For some reason it felt more intimate than a kiss. My pulse sped up. This was ridiculous. If I didn’t put some distance between us, I might do something I would regret. If you said yes to a vampire, he heard “I surrender,” and I had no intention of surrendering.
“You’ve done nothing to offend me.”
“Then why did you acknowledge Robart before me?”
What?
“You addressed him before you addressed me.”
I cleared my throat. “Just to be clear, you’re upset because I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you? In the ballroom just before we went to check on the car?”
“I understand that the circumstances of the summit prevent frank exchanges,” Arland said. “An appearance of propriety must be maintained and any hint of favoritism is to be avoided at all costs. But when one travels so far, one looks for the small things. A chance glance. A brief kindness, freely offered and gone unnoticed by all except its intended recipient. Some hint, some indication that he has not been forgotten. One might take an acknowledgment of a bitter rival before him, in public, as an indication of certain things.”
It dawned on me. His feelings were actually hurt.
“You haven’t been forgotten,” I told him and meant it. “I looked forward to seeing you. I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you so I could get him to leave. If I hadn’t, he would still be in the ballroom waiting for me to return.”
Arland smiled at me.
Wow.
When they said a smile could launch a thousand ships, they had Arland in mind. Except in his case, that thousand ships would be an armada carrying an army of some of the best humanoid predators the galaxy had managed to spawn, ready to slaughter their enemy on the battlefield.
I wanted to exhale and back away slowly. But he was still holding my hand.
I pulled whatever will I could scrape together and made my voice sound casual. “Arland? Can I have my hand back?”
“My apologies.” He opened his fingers and let my hand slip back through. “It was quite forward of me.”