“My dear boy, I did miss you.” Caldenia sipped her tea.
Helen bit a piece of bacon. Her eyes got big again and she scarfed it down and reached for the platter. Arland had reached for the bacon at the same time. They stared at each other across the table. A vampire standoff.
Helen wrinkled her face, showing him her tiny fangs.
Arland bared his scary fangs, his eyes laughing.
A low, tiny sound came from my niece. “Awrawrrawrawr.”
“Helen!” Maud turned to her. “Don’t growl at the table.”
Arland leaned back, pretending to be scared. “So fierce.”
Helen laughed, her giggles bubbling up. “Awrawrawr.”
Arland shuddered.
Helen giggled again, grabbed her mug, and hurled it at the wall. The mug shattered. I looked back. Helen’s seat was empty. The platter of bacon had vanished.
Sean lost it and laughed.
“What a delightful little girl,” Caldenia said, her eyes sparkling.
Maud looked lost. “I… She never…”
“The child has an inborn grasp of tactics.” Arland grinned.
Magic chimed, announcing a visitor. Hmm. In broad daylight? Coming in from the northwest, not the street. I’d have to meet them in the stables. I hadn’t yet collapsed the inn structure left over from the summit, mostly because I was so damn tired. It had taken so much energy to put everything where it needed to go so it would be invisible from the street, and packing it back in would take time and effort. Short term, the maintenance took less energy since everything was already formed and there. I was going to wait until after Christmas.
“Excuse me.” I picked up Helen’s plate, added one of the small apple pies to it, went into the front room, and lifted the green cloth on the side table. Three sets of eyes stared at me: one canine, one feline, and one half-human. I held the plate out. It was snatched from my hands. I dropped the cloth back down and headed to the stables through the hallway.
Sean stepped out of the kitchen and quietly followed me. I let him catch up.
“Problems?”
“Visitors,” I said.
We made our way to the stable gates.
In the field, beyond the small area of Otrokar holy ground, a green spiral sliced through the fabric of existence, unwinding from a single point into a funnel. Darkness puffed into the mouth of the funnel and withdrew, taking the spiral with it. An odd creature landed on the grass. Five feet tall, it stood on two grimy metal legs ending in metal hooves. The legs were a mess of old dented metal, gears, tiny lights, and thin tubes channeling a milky white substance. A bulbous hump protruded from its back. A tattered shroud, draped over the hump, hid most of its body. Two massive, oversized metal hands stuck out from the openings in the shroud, and, like the legs, consisted of a chaotic jumble of different parts. The creature’s folded, wrinkled neck, made of an alien rubber-like substance, seemed too long. A helmet that slightly resembled a medieval plague doctor’s face mask concealed the alien’s face. Three faceted high tech “eyes,” pale yellow and round, pierced the helmet. The whole thing looked like someone had scooped handfuls of garbage out of some cosmic trash heap and formed a vaguely humanoid creature out of it.
A Hiru. I didn’t realize any of them were left.
The thing saw us and turned, creaking. Thick lubricant squirted onto the gears, pinkish and greasy. The body clanked, ground, and moved, the metal protesting. The wind brought its noxious odor our way and I nearly gagged.
Next to me Sean had gone completely still.
“What the hell is that?”
“That’s a Hiru. They are completely harmless, but most of the creatures in the galaxy find them revolting. Please try not to gag.”
The Hiru slowly made its way to us and halted five feet from me.
I bowed my head and smiled. “Welcome to Gertrude Hunt.”
Something screeched within the Hiru, like nails on a chalkboard.
Don’t wince. Don’t vomit. Don’t offend the guest.
A tenor voice came forth, quiet and sad. “I have come with an offer for you.”
“It will be my pleasure to hear it out. Please, follow me.”
The Hiru walked into the stables, one tortured step at a time.
*
I led the Hiru into the front room. To do anything else would be an insult. Helen was still under the table. My niece had gone very quiet.
Maud met us in the doorway of the kitchen. She saw the Hiru and smiled. Not a wince, not a blink, nothing to indicate that she found anything about the guest distasteful.
“Would you like to share our meal?” I asked.
“No. I do not consume carbon-based compounds.”
“Is there a particular dish that I may prepare for you?”