One Fell Sweep

Helen turned and hid her face in Maud’s jeans.

“Too much,” my sister said and ruffled her hair. “It’s okay, little flower. It will be okay. We’re home.”

Sean was walking away with his bags.

“Sean,” I called.

He turned around and kept walking backward.

“Come have breakfast with us.”

“When?”

“At seven.” Orro always served breakfast at seven. The least I could do was feed Sean.

“I’ll be there.”

He turned around and kept walking. He never told me what he left behind.

I watched him stride away for another breath and turned to Gertrude Hunt. The back door opened.

“Gertrude Hunt welcomes you, Lord Arland,” I said. “Please follow me to your rooms.”

* * *

Maud crossed her arms and examined the bedroom. The floor and walls were a pale cream stone. A shaggy rug, a deep comforting brown with reddish streaks, stretched by the bed. A large floor-to-ceiling window opened onto the orchard. Lamps of frosted glass shaped like inverted tulips dotted the walls. A plain bed protruded from the wall, furnished with white linens and fluffy pillows.

Maud’s bedroom in our parents’ inn was a dark place, filled with books, weapons, and oddities we all collected either from excursions to Baha-char or from regulars who occasionally brought us gifts. Dad used to joke that Maud never grew out of the cave phase. The bedroom she just made could’ve belonged in any of the vampire castles. She did add some human touches to it - the lines were softer and less geometric - but overall, if we had large delegations of vampires coming in, I’d make her fix up their quarters.

“Told you,” I said. “Like riding a bicycle.”

She frowned. “I’m rusty.”

She was a little rusty. It took her nearly half an hour to figure out what she wanted and when she pushed the inn to do it, it moved sluggishly. Maud wasn’t one hundred percent connecting to Gertrude Hunt. That was okay. It would come with time.

“Mama?” Helen stuck her head through the doorway. “I made my room.”

I’d formed adjoining rooms for them.

“I can’t wait. Let me see.” Maud hurried over.

I followed and stopped in the doorway. Helen had made a pond. The entire room was lined with stone and filled with about a foot of water. A stone pathway led to the middle of the pond, where a large simulated tree bent to form a crescent shaped structure, a backward C. A small bed rested in the lower curve of the crescent, black sheets, black pillows, and a fuzzy pink blanket. Small, narrow windows punctured the dark walls, showing a glimpse of the orchard on all three sides. Helen must’ve wanted to see the orchard on every side, so she bent physics without realizing it. Dad always said that it was much easier to teach a child to be an innkeeper than an adult, because a child had no preconceived notions about what was possible. She’d kept the windows small, though. Trees were still a little scary.

“I can’t make the fishes.” Helen’s face looked mournful.

“The inn can’t make the fish,” I told her. “But we’ll go out and buy some, okay?”

“Okay.”

Magic chimed in my head. “Time for breakfast.”

I led them down the stairs. In the kitchen Orro dashed about. Helen had already seen him and didn’t bat an eye. For some reason, trees were scary but a seven-foot-tall monster hedgehog with foot-long needles and sharp claws was totally okay.

Caldenia was already seated. Her platinum-gray hair was impeccable, as was her makeup, and her sea-foam gown. She looked every inch a galactic tyrant ready for her morning meal.

“Is that who I think it is?” Maud murmured next to me.

“It is. She has a lifetime membership.”

“I remember when we went to camp and you wouldn’t go past your waist into the lake because you were convinced there were brain-eating amoebas in there. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore. When did you lose your mind?”

“When Mom and Dad disappeared. You were married and far away. Klaus wanted to keep searching. I had nothing and then the Assembly gave me this inn. It had been dormant for a very long time and it needed guests.”

“I’m so sorry,” Maud said.

“I’m a Demille.” I smiled at her. “We always manage. By the way, I didn’t forget that you dunked me into that lake. Payback is coming.”

“Bring it on.”

“Arland is coming down the stairs,” I warned her. I’d reopened the vampire wing I had built during the peace summit. The inn hadn’t absorbed it yet, so Arland had the entire palatial suite to himself.

She turned subtly.

I tracked Arland with my magic as he descended the stairs, walked through the hallway hidden from us by the wall, emerged into the front room, and finally entered the kitchen. He was out of his armor, the sign of highest trust from a vampire knight. He wore loose fitting black pants and a textured brown tunic pulled up on his forearms. His blond hair was carelessly pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Arland wasn’t just handsome, he was striking and when he smiled, it was the kind of smile that could launch a vampire armada. He was also built like a superhero: massive shoulders, defined arms, and a powerful chest, slimming down to a narrow, flat waist and long legs. Watching him walk toward us was an experience.

I glanced at my sister. Nothing. Cold as an iceberg.

“Mom!” an urgent whisper said behind us.