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"Of course not, dear, I'm not an imbecile. We spoke over the hedge. I would like to grow tomatoes."

  Whatever kept her occupied. "Very well. I'll purchase some plants and gardening tools."

  "Also a hat," Caldenia said. "One of those hideous straw affairs with little flowers on them."

  "Of course."

  "I'm going to grow green tomatoes, and then we'll fry them in butter."

  "Your Grace, you've never tried fried green tomatoes."

  "Life is about new experiences." Caldenia gave me a toothy smile.

  "I'd eat it," Sean said.

  I stared at him.

  He shrugged. "They're good."

  "You blackmailed me. You are not invited for these theoretical fried tomatoes."

  "Nonsense," Caldenia said. "They're my theoretical tomatoes. You are invited."

  I sighed. That was all I could do.

  Caldenia headed up the stairs and stopped. "By the way. Back in my younger days, a man broke into my estate and stole the Star of Inndar. It was a beautiful jewel, light blue and excellent for storing light-recorded data. I was keeping my financial records on it. I'd thought the man was perhaps a revolutionary come to heroically overthrow my rule, but sadly he was just an ordinary thief motivated by money. He was a karian, and he'd hidden dozens of pouches in his flesh. Before he was captured, he'd hidden the Star somewhere in his body. I required the jewel that evening to complete a certain financial agreement, and I didn't have time to dig through him and risk damaging the Star in the process."

  "So what did you do?" Sean said.

  Never ask that question.

  "I boiled him, my dear. It is still the only sure way to separate hard bits from all that flesh. And you have the added advantage of your captive being already dead, so there will be none of those annoying screams to alert the neighborhood. Good luck."

  She went up the stairs.

  Sean looked at me. "Is she for real?"

  "Very much so." I looked at the body. "If we try to boil it, there's no telling what sort of gasses or poisons it will release. We'll have to vent it outside, and it's going to stink." And it will be the kind of stench that would cause the whole neighborhood to call 911.

  Sean thought about it. "Is that smoker I saw on the back porch okay to use?"

  "Probably. Are you suggesting we smoke it?" What in the world...

  "No, I am suggesting we smoke a side of pork ribs. With lots and lots of hickory wood."

  * * *

  The stalker's body sprawled on the table like some grotesque butterfly straight out of a drug-induced nightmare. Although most of the blood had evaporated, it still had to weigh close to a hundred pounds. We'd have to take it apart.

  "Do you have a really large pot?" Sean asked.

  "Follow me."

  I led him into the kitchen and to the door of my pantry, located a couple of cabinets away from the refrigerator. Sean leaned back out of the kitchen doorway, checked the wall width—it was a regular six-inch wall—and leaned back. "Follow you where? Into the closet?"

  Oh, you chucklehead. I opened the door and flicked the light on. Five hundred square feet of pantry space greeted Sean. Nine rows of shelves lined the walls, all the way to the nine-foot ceiling. Pots and pans filled the front shelves, and past them flour, sugar, and other dry goods waited in large plastic containers, each with a small label. A large chest freezer stood on the right against the wall.

  Sean surveyed the pantry, turned on his foot, went to check the wall again, and came back. "How?"

  I waved my fingers at him. "Magic."

  "But..."

  "Magic, Sean." I walked in and pulled the enormous sixty-quart pot from the shelf in the corner. "I have several of those."

  "Where did you get all this stuff?"

  "Before this inn was orphaned, it was a thriving place. Many guests meant a lot of large meals. The question now is how will we boil the bodies? I'm not too wild about having them in my kitchen. I suppose we can get some electric hotplates, set them on the back patio on the slab, and put the pots on top of that."

  "Mhm." Sean didn't seem convinced. "Would it be hot enough, that's the question."

  "We might have to take that chance. We want low heat anyway."

  He smirked at me. "Boiled many bodies, have you?"

  "No, but I've made a lot of pulled pork."

  "Sixty quarts is a lot of water to heat."

  "What's the alternative?"

  "Let me think about it," Sean said. "I'm off to Home Depot, then. I should be back in an hour. Do I need to pick up some pork ribs?"

  "No." I opened the chest freezer. Sean stared at a three-foot-high tower of pork rib sides vacuum sealed in plastic. I'd stacked them up like cordwood.

  Sean struggled to process the ribs. Clearly he had been slapped with one surprise too many today.

  "Okay," he said finally. "I'll bite. Why?"

  "Beast likes to eat them."

  "That explains it." He turned to the door.

  "Sean, how much money do you need?"

  He gave me a flat look. No outrage, no anger, just a wall of no. "I'll be back in an hour." He went out the door.

  Hell would bloom before Sean Evans started taking care of my bills. I'd make him take the money. I just had to be smart about it.

  I looked at Beast. "I'm having serious doubts about our partnership."

  Beast didn't answer.

  I still had to do something about the stalker bodies. Folding them in half wouldn't do it. They still wouldn't fit. I picked up my broom and pushed my magic. The metal flowed, folding itself into a razor-sharp machete blade.

  This would get messy.

  Fifty-two minutes later, I heard a truck. The magic boomed as the vehicle came up my driveway... and kept going, around the house, rolling over my grass until it stopped at my back patio.

  I strode to the back door. It opened for me and I stepped out onto the porch. Beast followed me. An orange rental truck from Home Depot waited on the grass, parked so the truck bed faced me. It was filled with stacks of paver stones. Next to them rested bags of gravel, sand, a two-by-four, fireproof bricks... Sean hopped out of the front seat, opened the tailgate, and picked up two fifty-pound bags of sand without any apparent effort, as if they were jugs of milk.

  "What happened to the hot-plate plan?"

  "I did some thinking and one, it won't generate enough heat and two, we need additional fire to cover the stench."

  "Aha."

  "I checked the fire ordinance and it says all fire pits of this type should be twenty-five feet from any flammable structure. This patio is too close to the house, so I'm going to build you a new one."

  I smiled at him and tapped the patio with my broom, sending a pulse of magic through it. The concrete slab rose out of the ground and slid over the grass. I put it about thirty feet out. "Far enough?"

  Sean blinked.

  "Sean?"

  He recovered. "Sure. Saves me some work."

  "Do you want help?"

  "No, I got it."

  "Suit yourself. I'll go make some lemonade then."

  I went inside and sat at the bay window. Sean went over to the patio, looked at it for a while, then tested it with his boot. The patio predictably stayed where it was. Sean pondered it.

  Oh, this was too good. I reached for the patio with my magic.

  Sean stepped onto the concrete, putting his weight on the slab. The patio sank six inches into the ground. Sean jumped. He went straight up like a startled cat, twisted in the air, and landed on the grass. He-he! I raised the patio back up.

  Sean took a step toward it. The patio slid back a foot. He took another step. The patio slid back again.

  Sean spun to the house and saw me in the window. "Knock it off!"

  I laughed and went to make the lemonade.

  Chapter Seven

  I used a spatula to rescue the last piece of French bread from the pan. I'd melted a bit of butter in a nonstick skillet and fried each piece until it turned golden
brown. The trick wasn't getting the bread completely fried but instead just toasted enough for each slice to form a lovely golden crust.

  I'd peeled some garlic cloves, so I took one, chopped the top off it, and began rubbing each slice of bread with the clove.

  The first thing I'd done when I'd taken over the inn was update the kitchen with much larger windows, bring in new appliances, and replace the cracked and chipped white tile countertops. Money had been tight, so I'd gone with butcher block. The maple wood gave the kitchen a warm and inviting feel, and it was easier for the house to assimilate. Any building materials brought into the inn became part of the inn eventually. The inn could synthesize wood and stone, but it took a lot of energy, and providing it with the basics made things much easier. The inn fed on its environment, but the bulk of its life energy came from the guests and me. Without guests, it would fall dormant trying to conserve energy and when that happened, an inn decayed and fell apart just like any other house. When I had come to awaken Gertrude Hunt from its hibernation, it had been sleeping for so long, its siding had rotted away and a lot of the outside plumbing had succumbed to tree roots.

  The day was in full swing, the afternoon golden and beautiful outside, and the countertops all but glowed as if glazed with honey. From my vantage point at the island, I could see the north patio facing the street. It was one of my favorite places to hang out. I'd sit in one of the canvas chairs and read my book.

  Now the patio featured a smoker grill and Sean, armed with huge tongs. Beast lay by the grill. He'd bribed her with ribs.

  I had to give it to him, the man knew how to build a fire. I kept the windows closed but even so, I could smell the spicy, tangy bite of hickory smoke. It smelled like childhood and it brought back the long, lazy summer days, barbecue, watermelon, and freeze pops. If I closed my eyes, I could almost convince myself it was Dad grilling outside rather than some werewolf with entitlement issues.

  Best of all, the smoke drowned all other smells. Last night Sean had built an outdoor fire pit behind the house. He'd drawn a wide circle on the concrete, then built a wall of concrete blocks around it, leaving space to add wood. Next he lined the inside with fireproof bricks, leaving vent spaces, and installed the grill. We set the pots up, filled them with water from a hose, and let them cook through the night. The hickory chips in the fire pit drowned most of the stench, but if you stood right by the pot, you could smell an acrid, toxic odor. But to get to the back, any visitors would have to first pass by Sean's grill at the front of the house, and once they smelled the aroma of that barbecue, they wouldn't go any farther.

  Sean raised the grill lid and checked the meat. He wore jeans and a plain green T-shirt. The T-shirt molded to his muscular shoulders. Sean had a peculiar kind of strength, powerful but lean, quick and supple, but without weakness. Like flexible steel.

  And I've been looking at him entirely too long.

  I finished with the bread, took a bowl with egg mixture out of the refrigerator, and started spreading it on the bread, arranging the slices on a pretty green platter as I went.

  The screen door banged open and Sean sauntered into the kitchen. "What smells so good?"

  How could he even smell it over the smoke? "Here, have one."

  Sean snagged a sandwich off the platter and bit into it with a crunch. "Mmm. What's in this?"

  "Egg, Miracle Whip, garlic, and French bread."

  "So it's like an egg salad. It doesn't taste like an egg salad."

  "That's because of the garlic and bread." I chopped green onion and sprinkled it on the sandwiches. "How are the ribs?"

  "Good. We're about ready."

  Sean reached for another sandwich. I raised my knife.

  "Don't threaten me unless you mean to use it," he said.

  "Don't steal food until it's served and I won't have to."

  He laughed and went to wash his hands.

  I took the lemonade and iced-tea pitchers to the table outside. Sean helped me bring out sandwiches, corn on the cob, napkins, and paper plates. Kayley Henderson and her boyfriend, Robbie, came down the sidewalk and stopped by the hedge.

  "Are you the barbecue people?" Kayley asked.

  "We are," I confirmed.

  "We could smell it all the way from the bus stop." Robbie eyed the grill.

  Sean emerged from inside. Kayley's eyebrows crept up.

  "Why don't you join us," I said. "There's plenty to go around."

  "Thank you!" Kayley chirped.

  They came around and pulled up the chairs. A moment later Caldenia joined us.

  Sean pulled the first rack of ribs off the grill and onto a wooden block. "Have to let them rest a bit."

  Caldenia gifted Kayley with an inviting smile. "How are your studies going?"

  For the next ten minutes we were entertained with stories of Cedar Creek High. Someone stole someone else's boyfriend, someone was selling their ADHD medication, and three boys were busted stealing the school flag. I wasn't that much older and things I'd been through would turn their hair white, but after hearing all that, I was really glad I was done with high school.

  Sean carved the ribs and started passing them around the table. I cut a small piece from mine. It was delicious, just right, sweet and tangy with a hint of heat.

  "Hey, you!" Margaret came up the street, her Pomeranian bouncing by her feet like a small fluff of fur. "Kayley, your mother is looking for you."

  Kayley got up. "Can we take the food with us?"

  I waved at them. "Please do."

  "Thank you, Dina. The sandwiches are awesome."

  The kids fled with their plates.

  Misha ran around the hedge and Beast chased her, the two little dogs running in circles in the yard.

  "Join us," Sean invited.

  "Are you cooking for Dina?" Margaret opened her eyes wide. "Oooh."

  "Don't they make a cute couple?" Caldenia said.

  I resisted the urge to stab her with my fork. "We're not a couple. Sean fixed my smoker, so we decided to try it out."

  "You're not cooking a dead body in there, are you?" Margaret asked.

  I almost dropped my plate on my lap. "What? Eeew!"

  Sean raised his eyebrows. "Why would you ask that?"

  Margaret came around and sat in the chair. "You haven't seen the news? Turn on channel five."

  Suddenly I got a cold nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong. I got up. "Excuse me a moment."

  Sean followed me inside, into the front room.

  "Screen," I said. "Channel five."

  The wall opened, revealing the monitor. It came to life, showing footage of a rural house shot from above, likely from a helicopter.

  "...Scene of a terrible tragedy," a male anchor's voice said. "What's the death count now, Amy?"

  The footage switched to a blond reporter standing in front of a driveway. Behind her in the distance, the house loomed, flanked by police cars.

  "Police officials confirmed that all forty-two cows were killed and partially eaten, Ryan. There is no official word on the condition of John Rook's body; however, sources close to the investigation tell us that he suffered the same fate as his livestock."

  "Are you saying someone fed on his body?"

  Amy looked like she was about to vomit. "It appears so, Ryan. He was dismembered postmortem and part of him and the cows has been... cooked."

  I almost gagged.

  "Nobody had seen John Rook for several days; he could've been dead for quite a while. We'll have to wait for the coroner's official..."

  Below the footage a news update flashed: local farmer found dead, his livestock mutilated.

  It had to be the dahaka. How horrible. It killed the farmer, cooked him, and fed him to its dogs. I had to stop it.

  Sean pulled out his phone and typed in it. "It's less than ten miles north of here."

  "What are you thinking?"

  "Let's say I'm the dahaka. I have a pack of stalkers on my hands and I have to feed them, but I don't want
to be found. Stalkers would likely require a lot of meat. They're large and carnivorous. So I find this farm with a herd of cattle. It's remote enough for me to hide for days. I kill the farmer, start slaughtering his cows, and use the stalkers to patrol the boundaries of my territory and make sure nobody is coming. Except if the stalkers are like dogs, then they'll get bored and start to roam farther and farther until they find something interesting."

  "Like our subdivision."

  "Exactly."

  On the screen a shot of the butchered herd flashed again. It made me sick to my stomach. "Forty-two cows. That's a huge amount of meat."

  "I found a leaked photo." Sean showed me his phone. On it a bloody carcass of a cow lay on the grass. Its head, back, and legs were intact, but its stomach was missing, and the entire front of the body was a mess of shredded red tissue.

  "They went for the soft parts. Wasteful. This tells me that either he doesn't have great control of them or he doesn't care."

  "Either way, he has to find an alternative food supply." I knew exactly where that supply was. Either he would hit more farms or he would come south, toward us.

  Toward a subdivision filled with families.

  I took a deep breath and plastered on a smile. We had to go out and chat with Margaret before she decided to come in and investigate what was taking us so long.

  * * *

  I sat at the kitchen table. The werewolf sat across from me. Two perfectly round wooden spheres lay on the table, each about the size of a small kiwi. A complex pattern of dark, crisscrossing spirals wove through the wood. We'd fished them out of the pot once the flesh had fallen off the stalkers' bones. The inn grounds had swallowed both skeletons and the disgusting broth and pots with them. I wouldn't be reusing them.

  The trackers waited on the surface of the table, quiet and inert. No magic emissions. No electromagnetic signals. Just two harmless-looking chunks of wood. But when I reached for them with my magic, I felt a spark. It curled deep inside them, vibrant and alive, waiting to be released so it could blossom.

  Around us the inn was quiet. Caldenia had gone to bed, having delicately devoured enough meat to satiate three grown men. Outside the windows, a sunset burned down, one of those glorious Texas sunsets when the color grew thick and vivid and long stripes of clouds glowed orange on a nearly purple sky. Beast lay by my feet, gnawing on a bone Sean had given her. Through the day she had upgraded his status from kill on sight to suspicious to the man with delicious treats who can't be trusted. She would take a bone from him, but petting was still out of the question.