The Last Inn

  “Hey, Voi,” he whispered, and rubbed the top of the dust bunny’s head. He paused when he noticed the little creature was shaking.

  With his head so close to the floor, he easily heard the light footstep in the hall before someone opened the door to his room without knocking.

  “Kota?” Lani called softly. “Are you in here?”

  Kota stiffened, suddenly aware that the closet felt fuller than it had a minute ago. Although he could see very little with just the light coming in from under the door, he had a feeling that various unseen...things were crowding in around him in the small space, and under his hand Voi trembled more than ever.

  “Come out, come out,” the tamer said as she paced around the room. Judging by the sound of her steps and the way her voice changed in pitch, Kota thought she was looking under the bed as she added, “What did you think, of our little show in the woods? Should we give the guests a little encore?”

  She was walking toward the closet now. Kota silently reached up and grabbed the handle of the door just as the tamer tried to open it. He held it as tight as he could, and felt the unseen things move behind him, all of their attention riveted on his attempt to delay the inevitable.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Kota had never been so happy to hear Erin’s voice before.

  Lani let go of the doorknob and said, “I was just worried about Kota. You haven’t seen him around, have you?”

  “So you went rummaging in his room?” Erin scoffed. “Look around, he’s not in here. Now get out.”

  Lani took a long time to answer, but when she did her voice sounded different, less chirrupy sweet and more serious. “How well do you know Kota, Erin?”

  “What? He’s my partner, so I think I know him well enough.” Erin paused and said, less certain now, “Are you...do you, you know...”

  “Am I interested in him?” Lani asked, and chuckled. “Yes, you could say that. He’s not taken, is he?”

  “Huh? No, I...No, don’t think so.” Erin cleared her throat and said, “Still, you shouldn’t be in here. I’m sure Kota’s cleaning out the attic or doing the laundry or something. He can’t stay still for anything.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I can teach him how to stay,” Lani said before she walked out the door.

  After a moment to give Lani time to get down the stairs, Kota fell out of the closet and almost landed on Erin’s feet.

  “Kota!” Erin clapped a hand over her mouth and checked to make sure Lani had not heard. “You were here the whole time?”

  “Well, not the whole time,” Kota said, turning over to stare back into the closet. The empty space looked back at him, as did Voi who sat nestled in one of the inn’s blankets at the bottom of the closet. “I did take a little detour outside, but I guess you already knew that?”

  “Were you...” Erin looked from the blanket on the floor of the closet and back to the immaculately made bed. “Do you sleep in there?”

  “Less chance of an accident,” Kota said, inclining his head toward the window whose curtains were closed so as not to let in even the merest hint of sunlight. He stood up and added, “Thank you for covering for me, Lani almost had the door open.”

  Erin looked at the blanket again, thinking that this looked like more than just trying to avoid the sun, but she said, “Why were you hiding from her? Just to avoid explaining that?”

  “She knows.”

  That got Erin’s full attention. She knew Kota wasn’t talking about the closet. “Are you sure?”

  “She called me by name, out there, but I think she knew before then.” Kota ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Lani told me she had something planned for today; no doubt she hoped I would be curious enough to follow, and then...”

  “Kota, what happened out there?” Erin studied his face closely for any sign of that wolf she had seen coming out of the trees.

  “I don’t know.” Kota whispered the words as he stared at nothing in particular, his eyes like those of a lost child more than anything. “I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t think at all, I was just so...so angry. I’ve never felt like that, not s-sure how it happened.”

  He recovered from the slip without even blinking, but Erin’s mind went ahead and filled in the words that he meant to say: “not since.”

  “Has this happened before?” she asked.

  “No, I’ve never run into a tamer before,” he answered, turning to shut the closet door. Voi scurried out before it closed and disappeared down the hall, to wherever it was he went the rest of the time.

  “That’s not what I’m asking.” Erin stepped closer to Kota and he backed up, the handle of the closet door pressing into the small of his back. “Have you ever lost control like that before?”

  Kota stared down at her, both eyes and his mark clearly visible this close. He closed them so that he could not see her reaction when he said, “Yes, but not as the wolf.”

  Entry 58: First Snow

  Erin fumed as she went around the inn, slamming chairs into place only to move them back a minute later, or picking up the broom just to put it somewhere else when she realized that she would rather swing it at Kota’s head than sweep the floor.

  He had tossed her out of the room without a single explanation, not one! Well, politely asked her to leave and stood around awkwardly until she stormed out, but the intent was still the same. To admit that he had once been so angry that he lost control, and then not tell her anything else? It was...It was...

  Well, it was suspicious, Erin thought to herself once she had calmed down enough for rational thought. Had he done something he was ashamed of? Something terrible?

  Those remarks Miles and Lani kept making about how well she knew Kota chose this moment to replay through her head, and she wondered why she had never pressed him for answers. She knew Kota would just dodge the question like he always did, but maybe that should have been a warning in itself. What did he have to hide?

  Terra left the inn as soon as he saw what kind of mood Erin was in, and Lani had disappeared again. Erin considered storming back upstairs and demanding an explanation from Kota, for everything, while there was no one else around to overhear, but it was the fact that she was alone that stopped her, in the end. With no possible witnesses to see him change, there was nothing to stop Kota from just running away again. That, and a small part of Erin thought that if he had done something once, then maybe she should have someone around, just in case. She didn’t like thinking it, but the thought kept nagging her: how well did she know Kota, really?

  Late that night, long after they could expect any more guests to arrive, Kota emerged from his room and slunk down the stairs without meeting anyone’s eyes, least of all Erin’s. Before she could get to him, Lani popped up from among a group of strangers from the east lakes and intercepted the young man.

  Placing a hand on his arm, she asked, “Would you please step outside with me, just for a moment please?”

  Kota hesitated and then nodded, casting a pleading look at Erin as the tamer pulled him out the door among a few catcalls from one or two guys who had been deep in their drinks. Erin scowled and wondered why she should help him, but she went out through the kitchen’s back door all the same.

  Outside her breath came out in thin wisps and she pulled her jacket closer. The little light shining out of the inn’s windows caught something swirling in the air, and the ground was already covered in a light dusting of snow, the first of the year for the town. She shivered and grinned in spite of herself before she remembered the others, and followed the sound of Lani’s voice around the inn.

  She stopped at the corner and looked around to see the tamer move her hand up Kota’s arm to brush the hair out of his face as she said, “How does it work?”

  “It’s a curse,” Kota said, pushing her hand away with more impatience than Erin thought he could muster. “What do you want?”

  “You heard me tell Terra, didn’t you?” Lani’s teeth flashed as she smiled, even in
the dark. “I came here to tame the wolf, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Well, if you haven’t noticed yet, I’m not a wolf,” Kota said. “And I think I would have heard if tamer magic worked on humans.”

  “We can fix that, can’t we? Tell you what, Kota, I’ll give you a choice: come with me, or I do my thing with the wolf and you lose any choice at all in the matter.”

  Kota crossed his arms. “And just where do you want to go?”

  “Here, there, everywhere,” Lani said with a shrug. “I was just hired to get you away from the town. After that, the good mayor doesn’t care, and I think we could put on quite the show anywhere in the empire.”

  “Ah, a freakshow.”

  “More like trained animals. Of course, that’s just on the side. You would be surprised, how many people call me around so they can study Arlo and Junta, or to bring in a beast they just can be bothered to hunt down themselves.” Lani put out a hand toward Kota again, and he stepped back this time. “More than one wizard would like to learn more about that curse, I bet. And that wolf would be handy in hunting too, hm?”

  Kota shook his head, and it took him a long minute to answer. “To name one problem with your little plan, you need to get at the wolf to make me do anything, and that is not going to happen. Now if you don’t mind, I need to go inside and wash the dishes before the food sticks.”

  Lani stepped in his path and made a gesture with her hand. A pile of dirt out in the inn’s yard took on the bulky form of Junta, the mud badger, and a scarlet band drifting through the sky overhead was no doubt Arlo, circling around until Lani gave the next signal. Wherever the phoenix flew, it seemed to drizzle as the snow turned to rain. “So that is your choice?”

  Around the corner of the inn, Erin’s hands tightened into fists, but she stopped herself from moving. Surely Lani wouldn’t actually try to hurt Kota? But if she tried anything with her pets, Erin could get more help than she needed out of the inn in seconds, with enough witnesses to prove the girl was crazy and unstable.

  Kota did not seem any more worried than her. He just tilted his head and said, “That won’t get you the wolf, you know.”

  “Oh, I know.” Lani reached to her belt and pulled off the flute tied there. She raised it to her lips and began to play the same song from earlier, the fierce, complicated tune that raced away into the night while her eyes remained trained on Kota.

  Erin smiled, thinking that the tamer clearly had no idea how the curse worked. Her smile quickly faded when Kota clapped his hands to the side of his head and dropped to his knees, his forehead almost touching the ground. She could not hear the long string of words he was saying, but she did hear the sound that rumbled behind them, growing louder every second: a long, low growl that did not match Kota’s voice.

  His body twisted and jerked in spasms as it changed, but this change was different than the one brought on by the sun. It was slower, and obviously more painful judging by the barely human sounds coming from the young man as he tried to fight it off.

  Erin raced around the corner and tackled Lani as she cried, “Stop it!”

  The music jerked to a stop as the two fought over the flute, but Kota continued to writhe on the ground. After a short struggle, Erin yanked the flute out of Lani’s hands and snapped it clean in half before tossing the pieces on the ground.

  Overhead, the phoenix Arlo gave a long, heartfelt cry before flying away, and Junta disappeared in a spray of dirt, leaving only a large hole in her place.

  Lani whirled on Erin and snarled, “What did you do?”

  “Something I wish she would have done earlier,” said the man kneeling on the ground next to the shaking wolf, whose eyes were clenched shut. Both Lani and Erin stared at him, neither of them having noticed his arrival amid the fight. The man, or rather vampire, looked up at them and Miles asked, “Would you like to try to explain, or just get a running start?”

  Entry 59: Little Secret

  Lani glared at Miles as he examined the wolf. “Who are you supposed to be?”

  Miles glanced up at her, his stare unusually icy and his usual smile nowhere to be seen. “Name’s Miles. Imperial bounty hunter, with occasional odd-job government work. I am also a very testy vampire who never has enough to drink, so I would advise you to stop looking for a way to run and keep your mouth shut until I’m ready to deal with you. Got it?”

  Erin heard a sharp gasp from the tamer, whose face went as white as if Miles had hit her, but she didn’t say anything else.

  Miles lifted the upper half of the wolf and pulled back one of the eyelids to examine its eyes. A faint whine greeted him and he sighed with relief. “Kota, can you hear me?”

  The wolf opened its eyes and gave a faint whimper before trying to pull away from the vampire’s hands.

  “Good to see you too,” he said as he set the wolf down and stood up to face the others. Behind him, Kota’s head sank back onto the ground and the wolf made one or two efforts to stand up before giving up on the idea. “You, with the flute. Explain.”

  Lani opened her mouth and he immediately put up his hand to stop her. “Never mind. Erin?”

  “She’s a tamer, hired by the mayor to catch the wolf,” Erin said. She pointed at what remained of the flute and added, “She played some kind of song this morning and it made Kota act strange, and, well, you saw what happened this time.”

  He nodded, confirming Erin’s idea that he had been watching everything too. “Common trick for tamers, using music as a long distance means to get at the beast. You used it to control the phoenix and the earth creature, right?”

  Lani flung out a finger in Erin’s direction and said, “And she snapped it in half! I was just doing my job, hired by the local government, mind you. The law is on my side.”

  “And what, exactly, does the law say about a tamer using her magic on a known shapeshifter?” Miles asked, his eyes narrowing. “Any being that, however temporarily, can attain the shape of a human can not be controlled by a tamer against its will. There are a few exceptions, yeah, but I don’t see any of them here.”

  “Oh, and what are you going to do, arrest me?” Lani asked. She stepped closer to Miles, to Erin either displaying a lot of bravery or a deathwish. “You know these two, you know what Kota is, but you haven’t told anyone, have you? So that means you don’t want anyone to find out their little secret, but if you arrest me you’ll have to explain why.”

  Miles shrugged and grabbed Lani’s hand. From his pocket he pulled out a set of cuffs that glimmered in what light there was out here and slapped them on the tamer’s wrist. “Fine by me.”

  Behind him, Kota gave a low growl and managed to get up onto his paws, even though his legs were shaking so much beneath him that it was only a matter of time before they gave out again.

  Miles looked over his shoulder and said, “Oh, come on. People are going to have to find out sometime.”

  “Miles,” Erin said, and bit her lip when the vampire turned his stare on her. She swallowed back the bile at the idea of helping Lani and continued, “Her flute’s broken, so she can’t do anything else, right?”

  “Except tell people the wolf is Kota.” Miles said, locking the cuff around her other wrist. “If it’s going to happen either way, I’d rather she go to jail.”

  Lani looked from one to the other. “Why would I tell somebody? Like you said, it’s forbidden for me to use my talents on people. If I out Kota, I out myself.”

  Miles stared around at all of them and then swore. There was a click and Lani quickly stepped away. “Fine. Just remember that when you tell, I’ll be more than happy to escort you to the Judges.”

  “You mean ‘if,’” Lani said.

  “No, I don’t.” Miles pocketed his cuffs and turned back to Kota when he collapsed to the ground. “Give it up before you hurt yourself, man. Erin, do you mind checking the inn to see if the coast is clear?”

  Erin nodded and went inside. Miles checked Kota and saw that he had passed out from
the effort of trying to stand.

  “You said you were hired by the mayor?” he asked.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lani nod. “He sent me a letter, just like the hunter.”

  “Hunter?”

  “Oh, that’s right, you don’t know,” Lani said, not even trying to hide the glee in her voice. “He hired a hunter too, and he’s staying right here at this inn. I was the humane option. Still am, if you want to change your mind.”

  Miles did not waste the effort it took to hide his disgust as he said, “Pass.”

  Lani gave an obviously fake sigh. “Shame. He would make such a great pet, don’t you think?”

  Miles had her up off the ground before she could blink, her jacket knotted up in his hands. “I’ll give you one warning: I don’t care two bits about his little secret, and will still drag you to the capital right now if you give me one, just one, reason to do it.”

  He dropped her when the door opened and Erin stepped out.

  “Everyone’s headed upstairs to their rooms,” she said.

  Miles nodded and hefted the wolf up into his arms with a grunt. “Get the door, will you?”

  Erin held the door for him and followed him upstairs to Kota’s room, where she got the door again. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”

  “Don’t know,” Miles said. He stopped in the center of the room and looked around, as if unsure what to do now.

  Erin opened the closet door and they stared down at the blanket on the floor. “He sleeps in here, apparently.”

  “He definitely will tonight,” Miles said, unceremoniously dropping the wolf onto the blanket and rolling his shoulders with a faint popping sound. “You wouldn’t think he’d be so heavy.”

  “Must be all the fur,” Lani said from the door as she leaned against the frame.

  Erin whirled on her and said, “Pack your things. You’re going to turn in your key and leave, first thing in the morning.”

  “I am?”

  “You are unless you want me to throw you out myself,” Erin said.

  “Do it now, I want to watch,” Miles said and Erin glared at him. “Oh, like you want her to stay the night.”

  “She can leave in the morning, when she can explain to Mayor Geld she received a better offer to work somewhere else,” Erin said as she closed the closet door on the sleeping wolf. “Or just leave, I don’t really care.”