Clean Sweep(26)

"And?"

"My professional opinion is that this smells just like that hotdog-tequila vomit."

Ha. Ha. "I could've told you that and I'm not a werewolf."

Sean took another whiff. "Look, I've smelled decomposing bodies before. Human bodies, animal bodies. This smells wrong. Where is it from, because it's not from around here."

"It's from some hellish corner of the universe I know pretty much nothing about."

"What am I smelling for? Metal, plastic, what?"

"I don't know."

Sean inhaled again. "The carcass is too acrid. Metal and plastic don't give off strong scents. If there's something in there, the stench is blocking it."

"So far you're not much help."

"Dina, I don't even know what I'm looking for."

He had a point. I wasn't being fair. I was being snippy too, and it really had nothing to do with Sean and everything to do with me being frustrated. "Would an X-ray help?"

"You X-rayed it?"

I raised my hand. The X-ray slid through the floor and I held it out to Sean. He lifted it to the window, letting the light shine through the film. "What the hell...?"

"That's what I said." I sat in the chair. "I've tried magnets. I've scanned it for magic emissions, radio signal, radiation, and I went over it with a voltage detector just in case. Nothing."

"Are you sure it even has a tracker?"

"No."

Sean pondered me. "How about starting at the beginning?"

I explained about dahaka and stalkers and the now-destroyed inn.

Sean frowned. "So wait a minute, someone destroyed that inn and your Assembly didn't do anything about it?"

I shook my head. "No. Each innkeeper is on his or her own. The Assembly just sets policies and rates the inns, kind of like a cosmic Triple A. If someone walks in here and kills me, they'll do nothing about it. If you went to them complaining about me, they'd just rate my inn unsafe, which means nobody would stay here."

"So I would be taking away your livelihood."

The way he said it suggested he felt guilty about it. Huh. What do you know, a werewolf with a conscience. "Not only that, but an inn is a living entity. It forms a symbiotic relationship with its guests. Without guests, the inn will weaken and fall dormant, almost like a bear slipping into hibernation. If the inn stays dormant for too long, it will wither and die."

The house creaked around me, the thick timbers in its wall groaning in alarm.

"There is no chance of that happening," I told it. "You have me and you have Caldenia."

"Is it sentient?" Sean peered at the walls.

"The house understands some things. I don't know if it's sentient in the way you and I are, but it's definitely a living thing, Sean."

Caldenia walked through the door. She was carrying a tomato vine with four ripe, red tomatoes on it. Caldenia saw the stalker's body. Her carefully shaped eyebrows rose.

Now what? "Yes, Your Grace?"

"I'm glad that after months of a perfectly boring existence, the inn is now a hotbed of interesting activity. I do have to tell you that the reek is abominable. What are you doing?"

"We're trying to determine if this corpse has a tracking device somewhere inside it."

"Ah. Have fun, but before you dig into it, look at this."

She showed me the tomatoes.

"I just had a perfectly lovely conversation with the woman who lives down the street. Her name is Emily, I believe."

"Mrs. Ward?"

Caldenia waved her fingers. "Yes, something or other. Apparently she grows tomatoes in her backyard."

"Did you go off the inn grounds?"

"Of course not, dear, I'm not an imbecile. We spoke over the hedge. I would like to grow tomatoes."

Whatever kept her occupied. "Very well. I'll purchase some plants and gardening tools."

"Also a hat," Caldenia said. "One of those hideous straw affairs with little flowers on them."

"Of course."

"I'm going to grow green tomatoes, and then we'll fry them in butter."

"Your Grace, you've never tried fried green tomatoes."

"Life is about new experiences." Caldenia gave me a toothy smile.

"I'd eat it," Sean said.

I stared at him.

He shrugged. "They're good."

"You blackmailed me. You are not invited for these theoretical fried tomatoes."

"Nonsense," Caldenia said. "They're my theoretical tomatoes. You are invited."

I sighed. That was all I could do.

Caldenia headed up the stairs and stopped. "By the way. Back in my younger days, a man broke into my estate and stole the Star of Inndar. It was a beautiful jewel, light blue and excellent for storing light-recorded data. I was keeping my financial records on it. I'd thought the man was perhaps a revolutionary come to heroically overthrow my rule, but sadly he was just an ordinary thief motivated by money. He was a karian, and he'd hidden dozens of pouches in his flesh. Before he was captured, he'd hidden the Star somewhere in his body. I required the jewel that evening to complete a certain financial agreement, and I didn't have time to dig through him and risk damaging the Star in the process."