He rose and walked away.

Who the hell had I let into my inn?

Sophie glided over from the kitchen and set a cup of steaming tea in front of me. I tasted it. Chamomile.

She sat in the same chair as George.

“Do you know what he is planning?” I asked.

“No. I know he is conflicted about it. He calls me his conscience even though, of the two of us, I am more violent, at least at first glance.”

“No,” I told her. “You kill quickly and with mercy. George is merciless.”

“If one can be compassionate and merciless at once, he is that. George was always a contradiction.” Sophie drank her tea. “What will you do?”

“I’ll do what I was hired to do. I gave my word. I won’t back out now, but I will no longer let myself be used.”

Sophie smiled. “I bet he is counting on that.”

Chapter 13

I woke up, because the nameless cat was staring at me. His big round eyes shone like two moons, catching the morning light slipping through the curtains.

I raised my hand. He pondered it for a few seconds, then slowly moved forward and rubbed his soft head against my palm. For some inexplicable reason, it made me feel better. The cat rubbed against me again and settled on the bed to make muffins. I slid down to the floor.

“Beast?”

The little dog shot out from under the bed and jumped on me, licking my face. I hugged her. “Who is a good doggie? Beast is a good doggie!”

At least Beast loved me. No matter what I did that day, Beast thought I was the greatest owner in the history of the Universe. Sadly, I couldn’t just stay up here and play with her all day.

I got up, brushed my teeth, took a shower, and got dressed in my Innkeeper garb, complete with the blue robe, accomplishing the tasks on autopilot. Sleep had helped my body, but not the rest of me. I felt exhausted, emotionally and mentally wrung out.

“Main ballroom, please.”

A screen offered me the view of the main ballroom. The Battle Chaplain and the shaman sat on the floor, with about fifteen feet of space between them. They were talking. Their facial expressions didn’t seem hostile. The bodies of the three vampires had been placed into stasis chambers which looked a lot like coffins and gave rise to many Earth vampire legends. The body of Ruah had been wrapped in layers of cloth with ritualistic runes on it.

I made my way downstairs. Both of the religious representatives had decided to ship the corpses off world. Ruga, the shaman, wanted Ruah to be buried with his family. Odalon had written a communique to House Meer. He read it to me as we walked through the orchard, the pallet with the dead trailing behind us.

“It is with great regret that I must inform you that Lord Beneger and Knights Uriel and Korsarad have fallen victim to Turan Adin, having attacked him as he entered the dining hall during dinner.”

“Like cowards,” Ruga added on my left.

“Fallen victim?” Vampires saw themselves as predators, not prey. This was a scathing insult.

“Indeed,” Odalon smiled, baring his fangs. “Their resistance lasted but a few breaths and despite our most valiant efforts, they couldn’t be saved.”

The laughter burst out so fast, I clamped my hand over my mouth before I snorted.

“Even the intervention of an otrokari swordsman failed to make a difference, as they were dead within moments of their ill-fated charge.”

I glanced at Ruga. The shaman shrugged. “It’s not my communique.”

Odalon grinned. “I have performed the rights of Absolution and Passing through the Veil and have stood vigil for the required hours. I can only hope that my years of serving the Most Holy through thought and action and the blood of my body and that of my enemies spilled onto the fertile battlefields in the name of the Holy Anocracy are sufficient to recommend the souls of your knights to Paradise. You will find the recording of the incident with Lord Beneger.”

I chuckled. “So how hard did you have to beg the Most Holy to allow them to enter Paradise?”

“Only as hard as my integrity required.” Odalon smiled. “What do you think?”

“That is the nicest ‘Here are your dishonored dead, piss off and don’t come back’ letter I have ever heard,” I told him.

“I helped him with it,” Ruga said.

I felt someone’s gaze on me. To our left Turan Adin stood on the balcony. When I designed everyone else’s quarters, I had made sure that they all saw the orchard but jumping into it from their balconies would’ve landed them in different spots in it. Since Turan Adin made everyone lose their mind by his mere presence, his balcony actually opened here, near the landing field. He wore his armor and tabard. His hood was up, but he was looking at us.

Ruga growled quietly. Odalon glanced at Turan Adin and for a moment the otrokar and the vampire wore identical expressions.

“That creature disturbs me,” Ruga said.

“You are not alone in that,” Odalon told him.

“Because of how he kills?” I guessed.

“No.” Ruga grimaced. “Because he is desperate.”

“We are all desperate,” Odalon said. “Nobody wants to go back to Nexus.”

“Yes, but we are desperate but we still have hope that the fight will end.”

“True,” Odalon said. “There is darkness there.”

I glanced at him.

“A true spiritual advisor is more than a priest,” Odalon said. “We are the link between human and holy. We devote ourselves to service and that includes not just the spiritual but also the emotional needs of our congregation. We were chosen and drawn to our vocation because of our empathy.”

“We are similar,” Ruga said. “We seek to peer into the soul of the person and heal the frayed edges.”

That explained why the two of them had hit it off. Put two empaths into the same room for a few hours, and sooner or later they would naturally try to reach out to each other in an effort to understand how the other person feels.

“When I look into his soul,” Ruga said, glancing back over his shoulder at Turan Adin, “I see conflict.”

“Desperation is a catalyst that forces us to act,” Odalon said. “It summons the last reserves we possess in an effort to extricate us from danger. This is why we are here at this summit. We are so desperate, we are willing to negotiate with our sworn enemy. It pushes us to limits we normally cannot reach.”