Clean Sweep(34)

"I can't do that." Come on, tell me why you want him.

"I do not wish to resort to violence."

"Lord Soren, you come from a predatory species whose members bring down their victims by biting through their necks. At any given time there are at least five ongoing military conflicts between the Houses of the Holy Anocracy. You come to me wearing syn-armor and I've heard you prime your axe. I would argue that you don't have to consciously resort to violence. It's your default response."

Lord Soren stopped and stared at me. "I have five men-at-arms. All seasoned veterans."

"I have my broom, the inn, and the alpha-strain werewolf."

Lord Soren glanced at Sean, who blocked the five vampires, his arms crossed over his chest. "Really?"

"Yes."

Lord Soren's face turned thoughtful. Sean had made a bigger impression than my broom or my house. Obviously they knew more about alpha-strain werewolves than I did.

"If we start something, it will be loud and bloody. We wish to avoid detection, but this isn't our planet. We will crush you and leave."

"You will try."

"Even if you succeed in defending yourself, you will be left to deal with consequences."

He was right. It would be very messy.

"Earth is a neutral ground," I told him. "If you attack me without provocation, the Assembly will revoke your House's access to our services. I'm sure House Krahr is a powerful House with enemies who would take full advantage of your travel delays."

He loomed over me. Didn't like that, did he?

"Nobody has to know you surrendered the dahaka."

I raised my eyebrows. "Are you suggesting I compromise my honor?"

Lord Soren paused. I'd backed him into a corner. Honor wasn't a concept a vampire was comfortable compromising. Especially a knight.

"If you were to revoke his welcome, he would no longer be your guest."

"We do not surrender our guests to the first armed person who comes to the door."

Lord Soren chewed on that for a long minute. "Then we shall set up camp and watch the inn until he leaves."

He wouldn't give me any information. Time to end this. "That would be quite useless, my lord, because he isn't a guest."

"Do not toy with me. We are locked on to his trackers' signals."

"These trackers?"

I pulled the two trackers out of my pocket.

"Explain," Lord Soren growled.

"Don't give orders to her," Sean called.

Werewolf hearing. Much more sensitive than I'd anticipated.

"Explain, please," Lord Soren said.

"He's killing Earth's citizens, livestock, and hounds. He killed my neighbors' dogs, so I killed his stalkers in retaliation."

Lord Soren pondered the situation. "You activated the trackers. Why?"

"To draw him near."

"That isn't your way. You are neutral."

"Lord Soren, I run a specialized type of inn, catering to a very specific clientele. I don't handle things the way other innkeepers do. You and your men are welcome to join us and wait until he shows up."

Lord Soren looked at his men, looked at Sean, and back at me. "No. As I said, the House's honor is involved. We will handle it alone."

Anything I could say would be perceived as impugning his honor, and his House's honor, and his men's honor, and the honor of their parents and their parents' parents... "That's your prerogative, my lord."

Lord Soren studied the trackers in my hand. "House of Krahr desires to purchase the trackers from you."

"I would be willing to part with one."

"It will do," he said. "Name your price."

I held my hand over the boundary and dropped one tracker into his palm. "A gesture of good will, my lord. Perhaps next time we meet, we won't open our discussion with threats. I ask only that you do not involve my neighbors in your battle."

He blinked and bowed. "It will be so."

Lord Soren raised his hand with a tracker in it and bared his teeth. His inch-long fangs glistened in the streetlamp's light. The vampire weapons vanished as if by magic and his men-at-arms grinned back at him, their sickle teeth on display.

He turned to Sean. "This is our hunt. Stay out of it."

"Knock yourselves out," Sean said.

I walked over to him and we watched them pile into their Hummers and speed north, up the street.

"Thank you for watching my back," I said.

"No problem. Vampires, huh?"

"Mhm."

"I heard a heartbeat and I saw one of them sweat. They're not undead."

"No, they're a predatory strain of humans. We are situational predators and omnivores. They're carnivores."

"How do they get mistaken for corpses?"

"They have thick skin. They don't blush, their core body temperature is lower than ours, and you saw how pale their lips are. They also tend to put themselves into stasis in coffin-like modules when they know they're going to be stuck on our planet and they'll have to wait for a long time to be picked up. Sometimes they bury these modules because they don't want to be accidentally found."