“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.”
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.”
I stared at him, wishing I could shoot laser beams out of my eyes.
Sophie bent down, picked up the hem of her gown, and ripped the fabric to midthigh.
The Sentinel sighted her. Its metal frames slid against each other. Spikes sprang up, shielding the panels. The blue glow pulsed and the Sentinel shot toward Sophie, an enormous, furious multiton 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 what was left of my apple trees. I squeezed my broom.
George was watching Sophie with an odd look on his face.
The Sentinel barreled toward her. A chain shot out with a foot-wide black blade on the end.
Sophie moved.
It happened so fast I didn’t actually see it. One moment she was standing still and the next the chain and the blade hurtled to the side, severed, and crashed into the brush, while Sophie was running at the Sentinel. Her sword sparked with pure white, as if someone had taken a hair-thin lightning bolt and bound it to the metal edge.
The Sentinel whirled, swinging to the side, its colossal frames rotating as the machine feverishly tried to process new data. Chains, spikes, and spears shot at Sophie. She dodged them, barely moving out of the way, graceful, beautiful, and she struck again. Her sword moved so fast it was a blur, a ghost of a movement, barely perceptible, like a puff of shimmering air shooting up from hot pavement. The Sentinel’s weapons fell apart as if they were made of brittle glass.
The Sentinel’s blue light pulsed. The colossal machine charged Sophie. It was a no-holds-barred direct assault. It meant to crush her.
She smiled. The melancholy in her eyes vanished. They shone with pure, unbridled joy. These eyes, they belonged to someone else, someone merciless and cruel and predatory. Someone who lived for a chance to take another being’s life and reveled in doing it.
The Sentinel rolled straight at her.
She struck. Her sword flashed with white, so bright it was blinding.
The machine kept rolling. Sophie had vanished. Oh no, it must’ve rolled over her…
The Sentinel fell apart. The armored frames slid apart from each other, carved into pieces, the edges of the cuts perfectly smooth. The blue sphere turned dull and drained down in a heap of loose blue powder, revealing Sophie. She grinned at the remnants of the machine, and the expression on her face sent cold shivers down my spine. Sophie had enjoyed it. She’d enjoyed every moment of it.
George, who did you bring into my inn…
Sophie sheathed her sword.
“As I said, we will make all necessary reparations…,” George started.
“This is enough diplomacy for today,” Khanum said, her voice snapping like a whip. She turned and marched out of the ballroom, her otrokars at her heels.
I watched the vampires file out of the grand ballroom. The Merchants followed.
Someone tugged on my robe. I turned. Cookie stood next to me, his big blue eyes filled with sadness. The corners of his lynx ears drooped. He looked so pitiful I almost reached out to pet his fluffy head.
“Mistress Innkeeper?” Even his voice was tiny.
“Yes?” He was so fluffy.
“You didn’t find the emerald, did you?”
“Not yet.”
His ears drooped more. He was killing me with cuteness. “Oh.”
“Is Nuan Cee giving you trouble?” I asked.
“It’s a very expensive emerald. I’m responsible to my family.”
Since the otrokars had taken their ball, no doubt made of skulls and wrapped in the skin of their enemies, and stomped off in a huff to their quarters, the peace summit had effectively ground to a halt. That meant my afternoon was free.
“I tell you what, I’ll look for it today.”
Cookie’s eyes brightened. “Thank you!”
He scampered off, caught up with the Merchant procession, and followed them out.
Nuan Cee lingered in the ballroom and approached me. “What did Nuan Couki want?”
I raised my eyebrows. “That is between Cookie and me.”
“Humph.” Nuan Cee peered at the retreating form of his thrice-removed cousin’s seventh son.
“Rough day?” I asked.
“I do not hold much hope for these negotiations,” he said.
“It’s only day two.”
Nuan Cee glanced at me. “Trade is the oldest and most noble profession in the galaxy, and making deals is its currency. It is a rite as ancient as the cosmos and the very foundation of mathematics. Something is always equal to something else and an exchange can be made. You desire something and so you surrender something to obtain the desired result. Life is trade; we trade our labor for its fruit, we trade hours of study for knowledge, we trade pleasure for pleasure or sometimes for wealth, security, or offspring. I have made thousands of deals. I cannot deal with these people. I have nothing they want. I offer them peace, but they don’t want it. They only want war.”
He shook his head.
“Give them a chance,” I said.
“I will. But I will take steps.” He sounded ominous. “Also, we have some requests. I shall send my people to you with them.”
Oh goodie. “I look forward to it.”
I sealed everyone’s doors and went into the orchard. Beast ran ahead of me and sniffed at the mangled trees.
The remnants of the Sentinel were still scattered on the ground. Four of my twenty trees lay broken. I clenched my teeth. The trees were an extension of the inn, as much as everything on the inn’s grounds was a part of Gertrude Hunt. Seeing them broken like this physically hurt. I wanted to hug them and put them back together.
George would pay for this. One way or another.
I kicked a chunk of the Sentinel’s frame. Ow.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
The remaining trees rustled.
I nodded at the Sentinel. “Take this thing. Absorb what you can.” The inn could use all that metal and advanced circuitry. George wasn’t getting any of it back.
The Sentinel sank into the ground. I reached down and petted the severed trunks. Their stems might be gone, but their roots were still there, still alive. Maybe they would return. Only time would tell. I wanted to punch George right in the face.
I went back inside, got a cup of tea, and sat down in the living room in my favorite chair. Beast hopped into her dog bed, turned around three times, and flopped.
The inn recorded every minute of the summit. It should be easy enough to find out who had taken Cookie’s emerald. I just had to watch the some five hours of recordings and figure out where it went.
“I need a screen and the recording of the first night of the summit.”
A screen descended from the ceiling, growing on a thin stalk. The recording began. I flicked through it, fast forwarding to Cookie’s entrance… The problem was he was throwing gems by the pawful. It was hard to say which specific emerald he was referring to.
I became aware of someone looming at my side and paused the recording.
“Yes?”
“Mint.” Orro shook a sprig of mint at me.
“Okay?”
He stuck the sprig under my nose. “It’s wilted! I cannot be expected to cook with wilted mint.”
“I’ll go out later today and buy more mint.”