Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper Chronicles #5)(12)

“I thought you said no oxygen or phosphorus,” Sean said, his face grim.

“It’s cyanide-based life. Vinyl cyanide membranes instead of lipid ones. That’s about all we know about the Karr. They live in the oceans, they destroy anything that tries to intrude into their domain, they do not trade, and they do not communicate. They never leave the planet.”

“What do they eat?” Sean wondered.

I spread my arms. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Sean’s eyes were dark. I knew exactly what he was thinking. There was no way in. We would never make it to the surface, let alone land safely.

A tendril brushed my arm. Gertrude Hunt had sensed my anxiety. I patted the tendril gently.

A soft pulse of magic told us the recording was ready. Sean waved it onto the central screen.

The shop lay empty except for Gorvar dozing on a padded pillow on the floor. I fast forwarded. Hours flashed by in minutes. Occasionally Gorvar rose to stretch or drink some water.

More footage.

Finally, the door slid open and Wilmos strode into the shop, carrying a huge bag with odd bulges that looked suspiciously like weapon barrels stretching the fabric from the inside. Gorvar jumped up and bounded over like an overgrown puppy. Every time I saw Gorvar, he was either menacing or aloof and indifferent. Now he was spinning around in circles at Wilmos’ feet. If I wasn’t watching it, I wouldn’t have believed it in a million years.

Wilmos put the bag down and crouched. Gorvar licked his face. The grizzled werewolf hugged his pet. “This was a long one, wasn’t it? I’m getting too old for this shit. Hang on, I brought you something.”

He reached into his bag.

The doors behind him snapped open. A creature surged into the shop. It was eight feet tall and clad in a tattered dark robe with a deep hood and wide sleeves.

Wilmos yanked a weapon from inside the bag, spun around, planted one knee on the floor, leveled an energy hand cannon at the intruder, and fired. A glowing packet of energy left the barrel with a telltale zing like loose change shaken in a Coke can sizzling with electricity.

The robed figure dashed sideways. Wilmos’ burst missed, hitting the shelves instead. Weapons went flying.

The creature zigzagged, as if weightless. Wilmos kept firing, each burst chewing through the carefully arranged merchandise on the walls.

The intruder jerked its arms up, and for a second, I saw its hands, pallid, bony, with too-long fingers tipped with yellow claws. Wilmos sighted and fired. The energy spark hit the creature dead on. The air in front of it rippled, and the burst died, absorbed. Wilmos tossed the cannon on the ground and yanked another firearm from the bag.

A ball of orange lightning tore out of the intruder’s claws and streaked toward Wilmos. He lunged to the side, but the lightning chased him and splashed over his body. Wilmos convulsed, drumming the ground with his heels.

Gorvar shot forward at the intruder. The robed figure caught the huge wolf by his throat and clawed him, once, twice, almost impatient. Gorvar flailed, his eyes full of rage. The creature stabbed his stomach with his claws and ripped them upward, tearing through fur and muscle. The light dimmed in Gorvar’s eyes. It tossed the wolf aside, almost contemptuously, as if he were a discarded wrapper, and moved over to Wilmos.

The big werewolf wasn’t moving.

The robed figure picked him up by his belt. A shimmering gray bubble streaked with red veins formed around the two of them, lifting the intruder above the ground. The bubble and the two beings inside of it flew toward the door and out into Baha-char. The doors of the shop slid closed.

I motioned to the inn, rewinding the recording to the spot where the creature raised its arms, and paused it at the precise moment the ball of orange lightning broke free of its fingertips. The tattered robe, the bony hands that could have belonged to a corpse, the yellow claws, and finally the lightning. There was no doubt. It was just like Michael. I looked at Sean and saw the confirmation in his eyes. He remembered the fight as well as I did.

We were looking at another corrupted ad-hal.

“He was targeted because of us,” I said.

“It’s too early to tell,” Sean said. “Wilmos has his fingers in a lot of pies.”

I pointed at the screen. “A corrupted ad-hal, Sean?”

He didn’t say anything.

“If Wilmos even suspected a corrupted ad-hal was around, he would’ve come to us immediately. He fought Michael with us. He knows what they’re capable of. And it didn’t kill him. It took him.”

Wilmos was bait. We both knew it.

“If Wilmos is bait, and this is a trap,” Sean said, “then we’re meant to follow. The trap only works if we walk into it.” He looked at Karron still looming above us. “How are we supposed to follow it there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it expects us to die trying.”

“Why?” Sean frowned. “Seems too elaborate. Why is it even targeting us in the first place? Does it want revenge for Michael?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s chancy. If it were me, I would just wait and ambush us at the shop. We fought one of these assholes, and it almost kicked our asses. Two or three could finish us. Why not take Wilmos out of the equation, wait for us to show up, and then...” He hit his left palm with his right fist.

“I don’t know.” I got up. I was tired of not knowing. “A communication screen, please.”