Clean Sweep

The inn was lavished with spindle-work, didn't make sense, and was too elaborate, but it wasn't a monstrosity.

I walked up the porch stairs and petted the pale column. "He's a rude idiot. Don't pay him any attention. I think you're charming."

The house didn't answer.

I stepped inside and my heart made a quiet little leap in my chest as I nodded at the photograph of my parents hanging in the front room. Every time I went out, some small part of me hoped that when I came back, I would find them right there in the hallway, waiting for me.

I swallowed, turned left, climbed up the spacious staircase to the second floor, and came out onto the north balcony where Her Grace Caldenia ka ret Magren was taking her tea. She looked to be in her mid-sixties, but it was the kind of sixties one achieved after living for years in the lap of luxury. Her platinum-gray hair was pulled back from her face into a smooth knot. She had a strong profile with a classic Greek nose, pronounced cheekbones, and blue eyes that usually had a slightly forlorn look unless she found something funny. She held her teacup with utmost elegance, gazing down at the street with a slightly sardonic, melancholy demeanor.

I hid a smile. Caldenia was worldly, wise, and fashionably weary of life. Despite her detached air, she had no intentions of going gently into that good night and had gone to a great length to make sure she wouldn't pass on any time soon.

I opened the plastic shopping bag and pulled out a yellow plastic package and a yellow can. "Your Funyuns and Mello Yello, Your Grace."

"Ah!" Caldenia came to life. "Thank you."

She opened the bag with a flick of her fingers and shook a few Funyun rings onto a plate. Her long fingers plucked one up, and she bit into it and chewed with obvious pleasure.

"How did it go with the werewolf?" she asked.

I sat in the chair. "He's pretending I'm insane and that he doesn't know what I'm talking about."

"Perhaps he's repressed."

I raised my eyebrows.

Caldenia delicately chewed another Funyun. "Some of them do mentally castrate themselves in that way, dear. Controlling, religious mother; weak, passive father --you know how it goes. Genetic memory does have its limits. Personally, I was never one for denying your urges."

Yes, and several million people had paid the price.

Caldenia placed her thumbnail against the rim of the Mello Yello can and turned it. The metal squeaked. She popped the tab and neatly lifted the top off of the can. The edge of the cut was razor-sharp. She poured the contents into her teacup and drank, smiling.

"He's not repressed," I said. "He's spent the last two months marking every inch of what he considers his territory."

Caldenia raised her eyebrows. "You saw him?"

I nodded. Even in the dark Sean Evans was difficult to mistake for anyone else. It was the way he moved --a supple, powerful predator on the prowl.

"Did you get a glimpse of his equipment?"

"Honestly, now..."

Caldenia shrugged. "I just want to know if it's ample. A natural curiosity."

Sure, curiosity. "I have no idea. He was relatively modest about it and I didn't linger."

"There is your mistake." Caldenia sipped her tea. "Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero, my dear."

"I'm not interested in seizing any of Sean Evans' days. I just want him to stop the dog murderer."

"None of this is your problem, you know. The inn hasn't been threatened."

"These people are my neighbors." Yours, too. "They have no idea what they're dealing with. The killer is getting bolder. What if it kills a child next?"

Caldenia rolled her eyes. "Then whatever passes for law enforcement in this corner of the universe will deal with it. They will likely spectacularly fail, but the perpetrator either will stop to avoid attracting any more attention or perhaps the Senate will send someone to deal with it. Either way, my dear, not your problem."

I looked down the street. From the balcony I could see nearly three hundred yards down to the first bend of the ridiculously named Camelot Road before it curved this way and that through the subdivision. People hurried to work. To the right a couple of toddlers rode their tricycles up and down the concrete driveway in front of their house. To the left Margaret was refilling her bird feeder while a small, fluffy ball of reddish fur that was supposedly a Pomeranian bounced up and down at her feet.

They were my neighbors. They had their normal lives and ordinary problems. They lived in the suburbs, struggled with debt and a faltering economy, and tried to save for their children's college. Most of them weren't equipped to deal with things that had sharp teeth and a predatory intelligence stalking them in the night. Most of them didn't even know things like that existed.

My imagination conjured something with long claws bursting from under the hedges and snatching up a toddler. The rules and laws by which I lived said I shouldn't get involved. I was neutral by definition, which gave me certain protections, and once I compromised that neutrality, I'd be fair game for whatever owned those claws.

"Misha!" Margaret called.

The Pomeranian dashed around her, all but flying over green grass.

"Misha! Come here, you little brat!"

Misha dashed the other way, thoroughly enjoying the game. In a minute Margaret would lose her patience and chase her.

You'd have to be a heartless snake to leave them to deal with a monster on their own. Caldenia, despite her twin hearts, was quite heartless, but it didn't mean I had to be.

Caldenia crunched another Funyun.

I smiled. "More Mello Yello, Your Grace?"

"Yes, please."

I fished another can out of the bag. There would be no more dead dogs if I could help it.

*** *** ***

I opened my eyes. My bedroom lay shrouded in gloom, the moonlight painting long silvery stripes on the old wooden floor. The magic chimed in my head. Something had crossed the boundary of the inn's grounds. Well, something magically active or weighing more than fifty pounds. The inn was pretty good at distinguishing between a potential threat and random wildlife that wandered onto the grounds.

I sat up. Next to the bed, Beast raised her tiny head from her dog bed.

I listened. Crickets chirped. A cool breeze drifted through the screen of the open window, stirring the beige curtains. The wooden floor felt cool under my bare feet. I really should get a rug in here.

Another gentle chime. It felt as if someone had tossed a rock into calm water and the ripples splashed against my skin. Definitely an intruder.

I stood up. Beast made a mad lunge and licked my ankle. I took the broom from its spot against the wall and left the bedroom. A long hallway stretched before me, dappled with cool darkness and moonlight coming through the large bay windows. I walked along the hallway, zeroing in on the disturbance. The Shih Tzu trotted next to me like a vigilant seven-pound black-and-white mop.

The inn and I were bound so tightly it was almost an extension of me. I could target any intrusion with pinpoint accuracy. This particular intruder wasn't moving. He was milling about in one spot.

The house was dark and quiet around me. I crossed the hallway, turned, and stopped at a door to the western balcony. Something moved below, in the orchard. Let's see what the night dragged in. Soundlessly, the door swung open in front of me, and I stepped out onto the balcony.

In the orchard, twenty yards from the house, Sean Evans was urinating on my apple tree.

You've got to be kidding me.

"Stop that," I hissed in a theatrical whisper.

He ignored me. His back was to me and he was still wearing the same jeans and gray T-shirt I'd seen him in that morning.

"Sean Evans! I see you. Stop marking your territory on my apple tree."

"Don't worry," he said without turning. "It won't hurt the apples."

The nerve. "How would you know? You've probably never grown an apple tree in your entire life."

"You wanted me to handle it," he said. "I'm handling it."

He was handling it, all right. "What makes you think that marking things will have any effect? The dog killer ignored your marks before."

"This is how it's done," he said. "There is a certain etiquette to these things. He challenged me, and now I'll challenge him back."

"Not in my orchard, you won't. Get out."

Beast barked once to add her support.

"What is that?" he asked.

"It's a dog."

Sean zipped himself up, turned around, and took a running start at an oak tree. It was an incredible thing to watch: six feet away from the oak he leapt up and forward, bounced off the bark upward to the spot where two large branches split from the trunk, pushed off them like he was weightless, landed on the branch stretching toward the balcony, ran along it until it thinned, and crouched. The whole thing took less than two seconds.

His eyes shone once with bright golden amber. His face had gained a dangerous sharpness, predatory and slightly feral. A shiver ran down my spine. No, not repressed. Not even a little bit.

A werewolf was bad news. Always. If I had met him on the street like this, I'd have started making soothing noises and thinking of exit strategies. But we were on my turf.

"That's not a dog," Sean said.

Beast let out a tiny snarl, astonished at the insult.

"She weighs what, about six, seven pounds? Now, I'm willing to concede that somewhere in the distant past one of her ancestors might have been a dog. But now she's an oversized chinchilla."

"First you insult my house, now you insult my dog." I leaned on my broom.

"She has little ponytails," Sean said, nodding at the two tiny ponytails above the Shih Tzu's eyes.

"Her fur gets in her eyes. She's due for a grooming."

"Aha." Sean tilted his head to the side. He seemed completely feral now. "You're asking me to take a dog with two ponytails seriously."

"I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm telling you: get off my property." ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">