The Innkeeper

The first thing he noticed was the comforting beating of rain drops. He looked outside the window and saw rain. The room that he was in was dark, and slightly chilly, despite the blanket that covered him. Somewhere else, in the background, Lex could hear the muffled noise of a television.

It was strangely peaceful. Lex wanted to continue laying there, so he did. His memories came back to him, and he remembered talking to his elder sister, Belle. She was the same, cold and emotionless yet somehow frustrated at the same time elder sister that he remembered. Somehow, that filled him with relief.

“Mary, what’s going on at the Inn?” he asked in his mind, not bothering to get up.

“The fourth match is going on, and should end in a few hours. A lot of guests from Earth have returned to their planet, but other than that, nothing majorly significant. On a level more relevant to you, your friend Larry has fully recovered. It was quite fortunate that he qualified as a refugee, otherwise he would not have been able to pay the Inn to stay there, all his assets on Earth have been seized. He was able to pay for a few days using some artifacts that he happened to have when he arrived at the Inn, but then he ran into Marlo who’s paid for a long stay on Larry’s behalf.”

Lex nodded, taking a mental note to meet up with Larry soon and find out what happened. For now, he finally got up from his sofa and stumbled in the dark to turn on the lights.

The first thing he saw when the lights came on, on his outstretched hand, were pink nails. Lex froze in horror. He had experienced incidents like this before. He quickly ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there was nothing on his face. He forcefully scraped the polish off his nails, before exiting and yelling, “is anyone home?”

Upon receiving no reply, he walked towards the sound of the television, and found his youngest sister, Moon, watching a video with headphones on in the dark._.

“Hey,” Lex casually greeted her as he flicked her headphones off.

“Hey hey hey I’m watching something,” she yelled, quickly pulling her headphones back, but then turned and looked at Lex. She paused her video and turned to look at her brother. For a moment they only looked at one another, before Moon finally said, “What’s up with the gun? You been watching too many American rap videos?”

Lex immediately facepalmed.

“It’s dangerous these days, it’s for protection.”

“Yeah, must be tough, a lone boy living in the big city in America. Not at all like three girls living together in London, pretty safe here.”

Lex’s lips twitched, but chose to divert the subject.

“Where are mom and dad?”

“Bangladesh.”

“Bangladesh? What are they doing in Bangladesh? Where even is Bangladesh?” As startled as he was, he should have expected his parents to be off in some other country. But how was he supposed to check up on them? Ask Will again for another transport?

“‘Where is Bangladesh’ he asks. You’ve been to Bangladesh, idiot. How can you not remember? We talked to mom and dad yesterday, after you dozed off, so no need to go gunslinging off to SOUTH ASIA, they’re perfectly fine.”

Lex relaxed a little, and smiled at his sister. He didn’t bother asking how they were able to contact their parents, Moon wouldn’t lie to him, all that mattered was that they were fine.

“Speaking of which, what happened yesterday? I don’t remember going to sleep.”

“I dunno, you were on the couch when I got home.”

“What about Liz and Belle? Are they home?”

“Belle went out to work, Liz went out to do groceries. Speaking of which, follow me.”

Moon got up and quickly led Lex to the kitchen. She pulled a pot out of the fridge and put it on the stove and started to heat it.

“Liz made you soup and Belle left a few messages for you.”

She pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket and read off of it.

“My new job has a lot of security so tell that idiot not to worry, and that he should quickly go back to New York because one of mom and dads friends in Bangladesh has taught them way too much about arranged marriage and they’ve started looking at girls for Lex…” at that point Moon burst into laughter and dropped the paper.

Lex’s lips twitched as he watched his sister laugh at him. He understood Belle well enough, though she never said things up front, she must have understood that Lex had to go through unusual means to come and check up on them and wanted to assure him they were alright. It was well enough, now that he knew they were alright he could return to the Inn to take care of things there. To top it all off, he didn’t really need to return to New York and could go to the Inn directly from London. But since he was here, he might as well spend some time before he left.

He pulled out a couple of bowls and laid a table, and caught up with Moon. He asked her about school and life here, and about any… boys she might be interested in. When Moon only took the names of various celebrities Lex secretly breathed a sigh of relief. If she was really interested in someone she would tell him. Despite their large gap in age, they were close to one another and Moon was incapable of keeping secrets from him – as far as he knew. If she really was interested in someone, he wanted to play the role of the cool brother who was okay with it, but secretly it stressed him out.

They exchanged stories for a long time, and eventually the topic of cultivation came up once again. Moon explained how some people from Belle’s new work came and told them about cultivation and tested them out. Apparently all of them shared a genetic defect that made them unable to cultivate. Lex had a few doubts, but he buried them deep in his heart. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have secrets of his own, and one day when he raised the level of the Inn high enough where he could treat any kind of malady, he would bring his family to the Inn. So until that day came, he would choose to believe his sister’s words.

The hours passed, and Mary let him know that the forth game had ended. Liz finally came home, but Belle never showed up. The three siblings spent more time together, chatting and making fun of one another. Liz showed him the changes she had made to the Heavy Harley. Last night she decided to paint his gun instead of his face, and so a purple butterfly was painted on the handle of his gun.

Eventually, when it was getting late at night, Lex decided it was time for him to leave. Now that he had checked up on his family, he could focus on the Inn without any worries. Not to mention, even if he did get worried, he could secretly check up on them since he was not planning on leaving London.

After a long, drawn out goodbye, Lex finally left. He told them he would check up on them from time to time, but both his sisters had already stopped paying attention to him as he crossed the door.

Unsure of how to react to his siblings, Lex simply continued walking. After walking a short distance, his smile slowly turned into a frown. As a fledgling cultivator, his instincts had sharpened, and as much as he wanted to ignore it, he had a strong feeling something was wrong. He instinctively overlooked his family, as if there could be nothing suspicious about them, but could not figure out what it was.

He was about to ask Mary what was happening at the Inn when two men walked up in front of him and stopped.

Lex’s mind clicked, as if understanding that this is what his instincts were warning him about, and his hand hovered over the handle of his gun, ready to reach for it at a moment’s notice.

“Can I help you?” Lex asked, his tone slightly aggressive. Even an idiot would not expect friendly intentions from random strangers so late at night.

“Hello, my name is Ben, I work for INTERPOL,” one of the men said, and pulled out a badge for Lex to see. At a glance the badge looked real, but Lex had no way of knowing for sure.

“We’re conducting an investigation connected to terrorist organization and have reason to believe you have been in contact with some suspicious characters. Tell me, do you recognize this man?”

Ben flashed Lex a picture of Larry on his phone, and despite trying to be cautious, Lex could not help being startled at seeing his friend’s picture.

“I suspected as much,” Ben said upon seeing Lex’s reaction. He then played a video of Lex walking out of Larys apartment building and asked, “Is that you?”

Instead of answering, Lex asked, “What is this about?”

“Larry Dershaw is a protected citizen, affiliated with various influential people and organizations. Shortly after your visit,” Ben pointed at the video of Lex walking out of the building, “we believe there was an assassination attempt on Larry, after which he disappeared. We need to bring you in for questioning.”

ɴ[0)ᴠᴇʟ Lex suddenly did not know how to respond. It was indeed a fact that Larry had shown up at the Inn, wounded and bloody shortly after his visit, but Lex had not had an opportunity to ask him yet what had happened. These agents seemed to be real, in which case he should cooperate, right?

In the distance, a man was watching the interaction using a pair of binoculars.

“Tell the client we can only hold the target for a few hours, after which we’ll have to let him go. If he wants to get his hands on the target, he’ll have to do it himself,” the man said on a phone call.

“Understood. In the meantime, find out what he knows about the Larry kid. A proper interrogation before we get our hands on him might be helpful.”