“We will win.” Robart punched the table. “It is a righteous war. A holy war!”

“It’s logistics,” Arland said. “Neither we nor the Horde can shuttle enough troops to Nexus to ensure a decisive victory. We lost two transports just last month. What will you tell the soldiers inside them? They didn’t even get to taste the battle.”

“They knew the risks,” Robart barked.

“Yes, but they trust us to lead us into battle. They trust us to not waste their lives. I will not sacrifice any more of my knights on this pointless war.”

“If you’re too weak, then I will find another ally.”

Arland strode to the Keurig and I heard the water pour. If he needed more tea, I would have gotten him some.

“Like House Meer?” Arland asked, opening the refrigerator. “The cowards who wouldn’t even fight?”

“At least House Meer refuses to honor your pitiful attempts at peace,” Robart said. “Their dissent is…” He inhaled.

I smelled coffee. Oh no.

Arland returned to the table with the mug. Judging by the color, at least a third of it had to be the hazelnut flavored creamer from my fridge.

“Lord Arland,” I sank a warning into my voice.

“What is this?” Robart looked at the cup.

“A drink for real men,” Arland said. “I wouldn’t recommend it. It doesn’t suffer the unprepared.”

Lord Robart turned to me. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“That is a terrible idea,” I said. “The drink contains…”

“Here,” Arland handed his coffee to Robart. “If you insist. I shall get another.”

“No!” I reached for the cup.

Robart gulped the coffee. “This is interesting. It’s delicious, but I’m awaiting that profound impact you promised me.”

He drained half a mug.

Oh crap. Coffee had the same effect on vampires as alcohol on humans. He’d just downed an equivalent of half a whiskey bottle.

“You know what your problem is, Arland?” His voice slurred slightly. “You’re a… coward.”

Odalon blinked.

Robart drank another mighty swallow. “All of you,” he waved his index finger around, “are cowards. We must be primal. Resolute. Like our ancestors. Our ancestors didn’t need… weapons. They didn’t need armor. They had their teeth.”

He bared his fangs, clenched his right fist, and flexed his arm.

“Of course they did,” I murmured, keeping my voice soothing. Maybe he would just sit here and tell us about his ancestors and that would be that.

“And they hunted their enemies.” He finished off the mug and flipped it upside down on the table. “This dung.” He looked down at his beautiful armor. “I don’t need this dung.”

I knew exactly where this was going. “Grab him!”

Arland didn’t move. Odalon stared at Robart, his eyes wide.

Robart hit his crest. The armor fell off him, revealing a black shirt and pants underneath. He yanked the clothes off his body. “To hunt!” Robart roared and shot out of the back door into the rain.

Damn it.

Orro paused his chopping, rolled his head back, and let out several barking snorts.

“It’s not funny. Arland!” I pointed at him with my broom.

“He needed it,” Arland said, his tone unrepentant.

I squeezed the words through my teeth. “Go get him, my lord, before he hunts a car and Officer Marais hauls him in for questioning.”

Arland sighed and took off after Robart into the rain.

“Why do you always strip naked when you’re drunk?” I asked Odalon.

“This happened before?” The Battle Chaplain’s eyebrows crept up.

“Lord Arland drank some accidentally last time he was here.”

“It must be the armor. We live in it, so we remove it only in the safety of our homes. If your armor is off, you are clean, safe, and free, probably well fed and possibly ready to meet your partner in the privacy of your bedroom.” Odalon’s somber face remained stoic, but a tiny mischievous light played in his eyes. “Did Lord Arland mentioned his cousin’s Earth-born wife by any chance while he was indisposed?”

I kept a straight face. “Possibly.”

“The universe is vast and we’re its greatest mystery,” Odalon murmured and followed Arland outside.

I sat in the front room, going through the recording of the phantom, who stole the emerald. I decided that phantom was better than invisible blob. I’d reached some conclusions.

One, the phantom was definitely alive. It wasn’t a machine. I managed to isolate a six second video where I could see it move through the crowd based on a slight shimmer. The phantom moved to avoid people in its way and it clearly stepped over other gems and gold on the floor, choosing to move through stretches of empty floor. If the phantom had been a machine, it would have to have reasoning abilities and it would have a complicated mechanism of locomotion. If it had simply rolled on wheels, I’d see things nudged out of the way.

When each delegation entered the Grand Ballroom, I had the inn scan them for weapons. I knew the otrokari brought in a gun, although I didn’t expect them to actually fire it. The inn didn’t register anything with advanced robotics or artificial intelligence or anything that had artificial legs.

Two, since the phantom was alive, he or she had entered the inn with one of the delegations. I would’ve felt an intruder.

Three, since the intruder was one of the guests, he or she would be missing from the crowd in the Grand Ballroom when the emerald was being pilfered. Problem was, Gertrude Hunt recorded a wide angle video which gave me a nice panoramic view of the crowd, but they bunched up too much in those crucial five seconds.

I checked the clock. We scheduled the banquet at nine. It was too late for me, a little late for the merchants and the vampires and a little early for the otrokari. The clock said sixteen minutes past three. Plenty of time. I groped with my hand for my tea cup on the side table next to the sofa and touched something soft.

The cat sat on the side table.

We looked at each other.

Beast barked once, quietly.

The cat walked over the sofa’s arm, stomped over my lap – he was surprisingly heavy – and rubbed against me. I stroked his head. He rubbed again, purring, walked over to the other end of the sofa, and arranged himself on the blanket. He stretched, let out all of the claws on his front paws, and began kneading the blanket.