The Last Inn

by Rachel Gay

  “Oh, there you are, Kota,” she said, faking a smile and hoping that she did not sound too strange. “Do you want me to take the night shift?”

  “No, I had plenty of sleep today,” Kota said. He gave her a crooked smile and said, “I think I can find a way to pass the time.”

  Entry 34: The Pig

  Early in the morning, so early that all was still dark outside of the inn, Kota turned off the sink in the kitchen with dripping hands and strained his ears. The sound came again, quiet but distinct in the silence: the high laugh of a wayfarer.

  Kota turned off the light in the kitchen and stood to the side of the window as he looked out. Dark shapes moved in the yard, around the pile of bags that Erin tossed out earlier.

  Just as he checked to make sure he’d locked the door behind him and considered barring it with a chair, Kota heard a knocking at the front door which grew louder with every repetition. Casting a look around, he grabbed the nearest thing and ran to the front.

  He intended to open the door only a crack, but as soon as the knob turned in his hand Miles came barging in, nearly pushing him out of the way.

  “Sorry, got to put this thing down before I throw it,” he said and dropped a large cage in the center of the room. A disgruntled squeal came out of it before the vampire hit it with his hand. “Doing some late-night cleaning?”

  Kota put aside his broom, staring at Miles and the cage. There seemed no good place to start with the questions, so he just went with, “What’s in there?”

  “My latest catch,” Miles said. He frowned at the cage and looked ready to kick it. “Did you know that there are people surrounding this place?”

  “They’re wayfarers,” Kota said and Miles hissed sharply. “Here for their stuff, and just that I hope.”

  “You let them stay here?” Miles asked as he walked across the common room and went into the kitchen. As Kota followed him, he saw the vampire look out the window. “I’m surprised you’re not out there with them. How long have they been here?”

  “They came for some rooms yesterday, and tried to leave with Erin.”

  Miles looked at Kota. “Tried?”

  “It’s a long story,” Kota said.

  When he failed to go into detail, Miles nodded as if he had and said, “Right. Well, I think it’s time they took the hint and moved on.”

  “What?” Kota tried to stop Miles, but he walked out and the figures in the yard visibly stopped and turned to face him. Miles crossed his arms and said something to the wayfarers, but Kota could not hear the actual words and was not about to open the door or window. He did see one of the wayfarers point at the inn and make a gesture that he did not understand, to which Miles responded violently.

  The vampire charged at the wayfarers, but the group divided and ran, fading into the shadows beyond the inn as easily as they blended into the crowds back in town. Miles stalked around the yard and the inn a few times, but he returned within a few minutes.

  “Do you think they’ll be back?” Kota asked.

  “They always come back, but wayfarers can’t stay away from the road too long,” Miles said. He seemed distracted, and his nostrils started to flare. “What is that smell?”

  The vampire leaned toward Kota and sniffed, and his pupils started to dilate. “Is that blood?”

  “Deer,” Kota said, stepping back all the same. “We needed the meat.”

  Miles pinched the bridge of his nose. “So you were out there while they were wandering around? Did it ever...Did you even think...”

  He sighed, unable to even finish. “Look, do you mind if I leave the pig where she’s at now? I don’t want her in my room.”

  “It, er, she should be fine in the stables, with the horses,” Kota said, but Miles shook his head.

  “No, you are not going back out there again, and I don’t trust her to be alone for too long.” Miles sniffed again and looked inside the fridge. He came out with one of the carefully wrapped packages of raw deer meat and said, “So she can stay there then? If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat in my room.”

  “Please don’t,” Kota said, but Miles paid as much attention to him as he expected. He went out into the common room, but the pig kept giving him strange looks that made him feel uncomfortable.

  It seemed forever before the sun came up, and even longer before Erin and the guests emerged with various states of bedhead and found breakfast waiting for them on the table, with covers to keep the food warm. Miles came down the stairs last and stopped short when he saw Madame Elzwig pulling up a chair at the table with a satisfied smile.

  Erin noticed the vampire first and said, “Miles! When did you get here?”

  The Judge’s smile slipped away and she looked at Miles, who returned the stare with his own stony expression. A tense silence followed until Madame Elzwig said, “Yes, when did you get here?”

  “This morning,” Miles answered. “And you?”

  “Yesterday. We wished to stop and rest before returning to the capital city.” Madame Elzwig and Miles were both talking civilly, but their words had all the warmth of icicles. “Out on another one of your hunts?”

  Miles nodded and said, “If you will excuse me?”

  He nodded to everyone at the table and went back to the kitchen, pausing to pick up the pig’s cage on the way.

  “You could have warned me that she was here,” Miles said once the kitchen door shut behind him. Kota looked up from his seat at the table, but before he could even ask the vampire said, “Elzwig! You know that woman tried to have me staked?”

  “No,” Kota said, but Miles was too worked up to hear.

  “‘The letter of the law says,’” he said in a smarmy imitation of the Judge’s voice. “Just because I became a vampire too close to the timing of the registration, not that she was a fan of that to start with.”

  He continued on for some time, ranting about the Judge’s policy on what Miles called “irregulars,” until Kota said, “What’s with the pig?”

  Miles stopped talking and stared at Kota, breathing heavily. “What?”

  “What is she?”

  Miles looked at the pig and then back at Kota, whose expression was blank. “Well, she used to be a sorceress in Circa, a little village you’ve probably never heard of. People kept disappearing in the area, and it turned out someone had a thing for luring in strangers and turning them into animals once she was tired of them.”

  He kicked the cage and the pig grunted and stared at him with mean little eyes.

  “I take it you were one of them?” Kota said.

  “Too close,” Miles said. “Someone got too cocky though, and her spell turned back on her. Now she’s a pig, and I have to lug her to the capital so the wizards there can have a look and see how she did it, so they can fix the others.”

  “You left them there? As animals?”

  “I’ve got someone watching them,” Miles said. He hunted around in the fridge, shaking his head at the meager offerings before taking what was left from making breakfast and tossing it to the pig. “And if anything happens to them, there will be bacon.”

  The pig stopped snuffling through the food to turn a particularly evil stare on the vampire.

  Kota frowned but did not say anything to the vampire, who took a seat on the other side of the table.

  “You know,” he said, leaning on the table, “If you came to the capital with me, I could get one of the wizards to take a look at...your little problem.”

  He spared a glance at the cage, but the pig was eating as if she had not seen food in weeks. He looked back at Kota when the young man said, “No, thank you.”

  “What?”

  “I want to stay here,” Kota said simply.

  “Look, Kota, you’re just going to have to face the fact that the witch was wrong,” Miles said, leaning closer and lowering his voice. “There is nothing for you here except getting caught by one of those nice people in town and getting yourself killed.”

  He did not a
nswer, and made no move to tell Miles about how close he came to that just yesterday morning.

  “Just think about it, won’t you?” Miles said, and became surprised when Kota cracked a smile.

  “That’s the same thing Miss Elzwig said last night,” he explained. “She asked me to go to the capital with her as well.”

  “She did?” Miles’s eyes darted toward the door and back to Kota, but he could no more read the young man’s expression than before. “Why?”

  “She claims that she likes my cooking,” Kota said mildly as he stood up and began cleaning the kitchen.

  “I’m sure she did,” Miles muttered. He watched Kota and tilted his head as something occurred to him. “Wait, she compliments you on your cooking and you give the Judge venison? The Judge who guzzles wine like it’s water and only eats the finest foods?”

  “Oh, was that wrong?” Kota said. He looked over his shoulder and Miles stared at him, speechless.

  Entry 35: Payday

  Kota and Miles turned at the creak of the door and Erin stopped halfway inside the kitchen. She glanced at the cage on the floor when the pig gave a snort, frowned, and said, “Either of you going to explain why there’s an animal in my kitchen?”

  “That depends,” Miles said, eyeing the open door, “Are you going to explain why that animal is out there?”

  It took a second for Erin to register what he said, and then her face flushed red and she shut the door. “What’s with you and the Judge? The look on her face when you walked in, it’s making the other guests nervous!”

  “She doesn’t look like that all of the time?” Miles smiled, but when Erin’s expression failed to change he sighed and said, “Look, we just don’t get along. No reason to go into details, except one: when is she leaving?”

  Erin shrugged. “How should I know? They only paid for the one night, so I guess she’ll be leaving before long.”

  “Hm.” The vampire drew his legs up into his chair and sat there, hunched over and thinking this over. When it became evident that he would not be adding anything else to the conversation anytime soon, Erin shook her head and looked at Kota.

  “Are you okay?”

  Kota stopped in the act of a taking a sip of his drink, the glass a few inches from his mouth. “What? Oh, sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I mean...You must have had a long night, with nothing to do and all,” Erin said.

  Kota glanced at Miles out of the corner of his eye and said, “Boring enough, I suppose. How was breakfast?”

  “Oh, the guests liked it, and Madame Elzwig is raving as usual.” Erin walked around the kitchen, picking things up only to set them back down again. She fiddled with the egg carton and said, “I, um, wanted to give you this. It’s not much, but with what we got from the hikers, and Elzwig...”

  Kota looked at the money she handed him with surprise and a touch of confusion. “You’re paying me?”

  “Well, you don’t have to say it like that.” Erin tapped her fingers on the counter and did not quite look at Kota. “I just thought you might want it for something.”

  “Why?” Kota looked at the money and then back at Erin. “Do you want me to start paying for the room again?”

  “What? No!” Erin shot a glare at Miles, but his face remained locked in a deadpan, thoughtful expression. “I don’t know, buy something for yourself, get some decent clothes, save it, whatever. It’s your money, okay?”

  She went out of the room at just short of a run, but kept enough presence of mind not to slam the door behind her.

  Kota looked at the money and back at the door, then over to Miles. “That was strange, right? It wasn’t just me?”

  Miles snapped out of whatever thought he was in and jumped out of the chair. “I need to write a letter.”

  He walked out without another word, leaving Kota sitting at the table alone. At a sound he leaned over and looked at the pig in the cage, who stared back at him with narrowed eyes.

  “Yeah, I’m not asking you,” he said and stood up. Before he could reach the door, it opened again and Madame Elzwig’s servant bowed at him.

  “Madame wished for me to inform you that we are leaving within the hour,” he said.

  “Oh?” Kota had to fight to keep his eyes on the man and not look at the doors or windows to the room.

  The tall man had slicked back hair and his clothes were impeccable, without a sign of a single wrinkle or blemish, but he didn’t leave much of an impression. Everything about him was carefully tailored to suggest servant or butler, even the way he spoke.

  “She wishes to know if you have reconsidered her offer,” the servant said.

  They both looked at the sound of a thump and saw Erin in the middle of the common room, picking up a chair and apologizing to one of the hikers.

  Kota cleared his throat and said, “You can tell her that my answer’s still the same. I want to stay here, at the inn.”

  The servant gave him a small, brisk smile and said, “Exactly as she thought. Ah, while I’m here, I would like to take a look at the wine cellar. It’s a little passion of mine, would that be possible?”

  “Er, sure, it’s this way,” Kota said. He went to the corner alcove next to Erin’s room and pulled up the ring in the floor to reveal a set of steps leading down. He considered telling the servant about how they found the cellar door under a layer of grime, but by the time he worked up to saying something the servant spoke again, in a different tone of voice.

  “Paget told me about the wayfarers, how your...friend chased them away from this place last night.”

  “Paget?”

  “The driver,” the servant said. He picked up a dusty bottle and turned it over in his hands. He held it to the light for further examination as he said, “Terrible things they said about you, those wayfarers.”

  Overhead the floorboards creaked beneath the distant murmur of voices.

  “Fortunately, empire law does not consider the testimony of such people valid.” The servant replaced the bottle with care and walked further into the cellar. “Otherwise, Madame might be required to look into some of their accusations.”

  “They would say anything though, wouldn’t they? If it meant they could get their hands on someone else,” Kota said. He could feel himself shaking, and leaned against the cool stone wall of the cellar to hide it.

  “Thus why we don’t listen to them.” The servant stepped around a pallet and out of sight, but his voice still carried through the cellar. “But one does have to question why they are so interested in you, Master Kota.”

  “Just,” Kota started and swallowed before continuing, “Just Kota. I’ve heard the stories. The wayfarers target people with few attachments, outsiders, strangers—”

  “I was given to understand from Miss Erin that you were from the area,” the servant said. Kota scanned the gloom, trying to find where he was at now. “Your clothes, and that accent would suggest otherwise, though.”

  “Accent?”

  “Northern. I say the lowlands, but Madame Elzwig has it pinned to the mountains of the borderlands.”

  Kota edged toward the door in slow increments. The second he was on those steps the servant would hear and could give a warning, but by the time anyone responded he could be out the door. He already knew how long it took to get to the forest from the inn, and then—

  The servant stepped out from behind a wine rack, precisely halfway between Kota and the door. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to settle that for us? No? Then may I just say that it would be prudent if you kept Madame’s offer in mind. A Judge’s hand reaches far, as does her protection.”

  “And do I need protecting?” Kota asked.

  “How should I know?” The servant absentmindedly turned a bottle so that its label faced up. “But considering the attention you’ve been getting lately, I wouldn’t burn any bridges. Here is Madame’s card. If you’re ever in the city, or need any help, do consider it.”

  “But I don’t—” Kota looke
d up from the little white card to see that the servant was already going up the stairs. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose until his headache and the shaking passed.

  Entry 36: Locked

  Erin saw Kota sneak out of the kitchen and up to his room without saying a word, but did not think anything of it. It was almost typical behavior for him, and it wasn’t like he would have been much help when it came to loading the bags back onto the Judge’s carriage. As she passed the last of the dark suitcases to Madame Elzwig’s servant, she wondered why they bothered to drag the things inside if they were just going to put them back the next morning.

  “Thank you,” the servant, Neil, said. He heaved the suitcase into the rack built into the back of the carriage and shut the door on it, careful to lock it with a key that he slipped into his chest pocket. “I know that some of Madame’s workings can get heavy.”

  Erin stopped rubbing her arm. “Workings?”

  “Yes. Some of those cases are filled to the brim with files,” he remarked. “She insists on keeping them nearby at all times.”

  She sensed from his tone that lugging those cases around could get old very fast. She looked at the door and found herself saying, “If they’re that important, you’ll probably want to get a better lock then.”

  Neil smiled and said, “I assure you, that lock was created by a master craftsman. There is only one key for it.”

  “Well, yeah, but you wouldn’t need a key to open it, would you?” Spurred on by the servant’s condescending smile, Erin looked around and picked up a stick around the right size off the ground. “Watch.”

  She slid the slim stick into the crack just below the lock and, after a little maneuvering, the door slowly swung open with a gaping hole where the lock had popped out of place. Neil’s hand went to his mouth and it slid down his face while Erin held the piece of metal up for inspection.

  “Oh,” was all he could manage to say.

  “My dad showed me that trick,” Erin explained as she passed the lock to the servant. She sighed, thinking about the keys the wayfarers had walked off with. She really couldn’t put off changing the locks, not while she still had the money.

  She left Neil showing the popped lock to the carriage driver and went inside, where the hikers had maps strewn out over one of the tables and were arguing over the best paths to take to get to the city. Miles and Madame Elzwig were sitting as far away from each other as possible, Miles in the darkest corner and the Judge in the middle of a pool of sunlight coming in through an open window.