“Only for emergencies, I assure you.” George turned to me. “Could I trouble you for a visual?”

I turned to the left wall. “Visual of the orchard, please.”

The wall glowed, presenting the image of the orchard. The Arbiter’s container lay shattered. A wide strip of plowed earth cut through the field, veering to the brush, where trees lay snapped. The sound of wood snapping echoed through the ballroom. A dark blur dashed behind the trees, dirt flew, and a huge metal contraption shot into the open. It looked like three complex frames of black metal, each a foot thick and bearing armored panels revolving over each other, all anchored by a glowing blue ball in the center about six feet wide. The Sentinel hovered in place for a brief second. Bladed chains shot out of it. The Sentinel spun like a dervish, the blades barely three feet from the nearest apple trees.

No. He wouldn’t dare.

Two feet. George gave me an apologetic smile.

The blade chipped the bark. No, no, no…

The Sentinel veered left. The blade passed cleanly through the apple trunk.

He didn’t.

The tree collapsed with an ear-splitting crack.

He was out of his mind. “Lord Camarine,” I growled.

“This is simply dreadful,” George said. “My deepest, sincerest apologies.”

The second tree fell. I raised my broom. Demonstration or not, he would regret this.

“No, no, please. We’ll take care of it. I insist.” He glanced up to the balcony. “Sophie, would you mind?”

Sophie rose and left the balcony.

He chopped down my apple trees. He would pay for this.

“A human?” Arland asked. “You are sending a human against that?”

Robart pointed at the Sentinel, which had veered away from the orchard, and was spinning in the field. “That is a Class 6 mass casualty guard unit. This thing is designed to be nearly indestructible. It will take concentrated laser fire or KPSM to take it down.”

“KPSM?” I was too mad to keep the fury out of my voice.

“Kinetic Projectile of Significant Mass,” Robart said.

“He means a giant chunk of metal launched from a cannon of a spaceship in orbit,” Lady Isur told me.

Sophie appeared on the screen, walking through the orchard, still wearing her grey gown and carrying a sword in a sheath in her left hand. Her expression was resigned, her eyes sad. The Sentinel was a full twenty feet in diameter, bigger with chains and blades out. She was barely five and a half feet tall. Even if she was the best swordwoman in the history of the universe, it was like trying to stop a semi barreling down the highway with a toothpick.

“This is suicide.” Dagorkun glanced at his mother. “I can take a squad right now. Give us twenty minutes, we’ll turn it into scrap metal.”

The Khanum’s eyes narrowed. She raised her hand and Dagorkun fell silent.

“We are in a residential neighborhood,” I ground out. “There is a limit to how long I can hide this. I’m going to take care of it.”

George shot me a warning glance. “Please. It’s my mess. Let me clean it up.”

Sophie bend down, picked up the hem of her gown and ripped the fabric to mid-thigh.

The Sentinel sighted her. Its metal frames slid against each other. Spikes sprung up, shielding the panels. The blue glow pulsed and the Sentinel shot toward Sophie, an enormous, furious multi-ton tornado of razor sharp metal.

Sophie leaned forward slightly on her toes.

She was going to get run over. The Sentinel would splatter her on my apple trees. I squeezed my broom.

George was watching Sophie with an odd look on his face.

The Sentinel barreled at her. A chain shot out with a foot-wide black blade on the end.

Sophie moved.

It happened so fast, I didn’t actually see it. One moment she was standing still and the next the chain and the blade hurtled to the side, severed, and crashed into the brush, while Sophie was running at the Sentinel. Her sword sparked with pure white, as if someone had taken a hair-thin lightning bolt and bound it to the metal edge.

The Sentinel whirled, swinging to the side, its colossal frames rotating as the machine feverishly tried to process new data. Chains, spikes, and spears shot at Sophie. She dodged them, barely moving out of the way, graceful, beautiful, and struck again. Her sword moved so fast, it was a blur, a ghost of a movement, barely perceptible, like a puff of hot air shooting up from hot pavement. The Sentinel’s weapons fell apart, as if they were made of brittle glass.

The Sentinel’s blue light pulsed. The colossal machine charged Sophie. It was a no holds barred, direct assault. It meant to crush her.

She smiled. The melancholy in her eyes vanished. They shone with pure, unbridled joy. These eyes, they belonged to someone else, someone merciless and cruel and predatory. Someone who lived for a chance to take another being’s life and revel in doing it.

The Sentinel rolled straight at her.

She struck. Her sword flashed with white, so bright it was blinding.

The machine kept rolling. Sophie had vanished. Oh no, it must’ve rolled over her…

The Sentinel fell apart. The armored frames slid apart from each other, carved into pieces, the edges of the cuts perfectly smooth. The blue sphere turned dull and drained down in a heap of loose blue powder, revealing Sophie. She grinned at the remnants of the machine, and the expression on her face sent cold shivers down my spine. Sophie had enjoyed it. She had enjoyed every moment of it.

George, who did you bring into my inn…

Sophie sheathed her sword.

“As I said, we will make all necessary reparations…” George started.

“This is enough diplomacy for today,” the Khanum said, her voice snapping like a whip. She turned and marched out of the ballroom, her otrokari at her heels.

I watched the vampires file out of the grand ballroom. The merchants followed.

Someone tugged on my robe. I turned. Cookie stood next to me, his big blue eyes filled with sadness. The corners of his fox ears drooped. He looked so pitiful, I almost reached out to pet his fluffy head.

“Mistress Innkeeper?” Even his voice was tiny.

“Yes?” He was so fluffy.

“You didn’t find the emerald, did you?”

“Not yet.”

His ears drooped more. He was killing me with cuteness. “Oh.”

“Is Nuan Cee giving you trouble?” I asked.

“It is a very expensive emerald. I am responsible to my family.”