Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
“It’s a great day to be me,” Zee announced, emerging from the elevator in the lobby with a dramatic flair that clearly meant he’d been up all night entertaining and was brimming with sexual energy that should probably have been illegal at five a.m.
Dressed in a frilly, partially buttoned white shirt and flowing cream pants, with dark horns and a swooshing tail, he resembled a demon who’d grabbed a disguise from a wedding store while running from the cops.
He saw me... then the three duffel bags at my feet. “Ah, three sus duffel bags full of illbegotten drug money, amiright?”
“Uh, no. It’s?—”
“Guns, then? Definitely guns.”
“No.” I glanced at Madame Matase behind the front desk, but she didn’t seem all that concerned. Nothing surprised her anymore. “Why would it be guns?” I asked Zee.
He ambled closer. “A bomb? Where did you even get a bomb, and those weird-ass terrorist bags?”
Victor’s arrival gave me a brief reprieve, although as he emerged from the stairwell, dressed in vampire gray and with his hair impeccably braided, I could see he clearly had plans for the day. Plans he’d have to drop. “Adam, I missed you last night?—”
“Oh, yeah . . . I, uh . . .” Scratching my neck, I avoided his penetrating gaze. “There was a thing . . .”
“Ask him what’s in the bags, Daddy Spice.” Zee dug an elbow into Victor’s waist, which did nothing to move Victor at all. “I vote drug money. Tom’s dealers finally caught up with him and we’re embroiled in a drug war.” He draped his arm on Victor’s shoulder. “El Capo is after us, but we got this because we’re Heroes of the fuckin’ City.” Zee winked. “I am ready. Let’s go fight crime—or do crime. Both are valid.”
I blinked, briefly stumped. I’d been up all night. My head ached from a million thoughts, my stomach churned ... and somehow I had to protect the two most important people in my life, this hotel and all its guests, Madame Matase, and Jimmy, and all the gremlins, and... maybe the whole city too. All night, I’d been trying to find a way out of this. I’d even asked Tom Collins—without giving details—and he’d agreed that sometimes there was only one solution.
“I packed our bags,” I said, forcing a grin. “We’re going on vacation.”
“We are?” Zee straightened, suddenly interested. “Oh, fun. Where to? Did you pack Carlos?”
Did I pack . . . uh . . . “Carlos is . . . who?”
“My favorite dildo.” Zee flicked his purple bangs and rolled his eyes. “How do you not know this? What? Why are you staring?”
“Do they all have names?” I asked—I couldn’t help myself.
“You have a favorite dildo?” Victor wondered aloud.
“Uhm, no, Carlos is my favorite, as I just said, so he gets a name. And you, Fancy Fangs... you don’t have a favorite dick? Pfft. What am I saying? Of course you don’t. The only thing up your ass is that thousand-year-old stick.” Zee knelt and unzipped a bag. “ Boooring. Clearly, Daddy Spice’s bag.” He opened a second, revealing an array of colorful fabric. “Adam...” He drew my name out on a long sigh. “Not only is Carlos not in here, but there aren’t any sex toys at all.”
In my rush to save their lives, I hadn’t been thinking about bringing his collection of bouncy multicolored vibrating dicks. “Oh, I...” I shrugged. “We’ll buy some on the road. Let’s go.”
“Now?” Victor asked. His dark eyebrows began to creep closer. I had three seconds before they met in a frown, and then he wouldn’t let this happen without some kind of reasonable explanation—that I didn’t have.
Zee stood, bag in hand. “Vacation, here we come. It’s about fuckin’ time. We deserve it. Are we going somewhere tropical? Did you pack my mankini?”
“No, and uh... no.” I grabbed Victor’s bag and offered it to him.
“You’re terrible at packing,” Zee was saying. “You should have let me do it.”
“Then we’d have only dildos,” Victor remarked.
Zee slung his bag over his shoulder. “And we’d be guaranteed a great time.”
Victor eyed his bag dangling from my grip, then looked up at my face. I couldn’t tell him why this was happening. Not yet. We needed to get far, far away. Then I’d tell him—tell them both. When we were all safe. Please don’t ask.
He couldn’t read minds, we’d established that, but he was very good at reading expressions, and the frown he wore as he took his bag from my hand meant he knew this wasn’t right or normal, but he wasn’t going to ask—not yet. He would, though, and soon.
“Great.” I picked up my bag, told Madame Matase we’d be out of town for a few days, then quickly turned away before she asked where we were going. It was better for everyone if nobody knew. If they didn’t know, then the information couldn’t be coerced out of them.
The rusty pink rental minivan waited out front, basking under the weak early-morning sunlight. It had clearly had a few scrapes in its long life, but it was cheap. And it had been the only vehicle left at the rental company at short notice.
Victor stood in the shade on the porch, squinting down at me.
“I know. I’m ... sorry.” I hauled open the minivan’s sliding door and flung my bag into the back after Zee had loaded his. When I looked back, Victor’s glare had turned icy. Please don’t ask, I silently begged again.
“The back windows are blacked out... for vampires,” I said, hoping it might help defuse some of his scowl.
“Very well.” He dashed from the porch into the back of the van in a blur.
Zee called shotgun and poofed into the front passenger seat, then jabbed at the old-style radio, searching for a station. I climbed behind the wheel, turned the key, and the van’s engine grumbled to life. A puff of black smoke filled the mirrors.
Hands on the wheel, I hesitated, looking up at the porch and what I could see of the hotel from the driver’s window.
It was going to be okay.
This was the best solution for everyone.
The hotel was too important... and so was Zee, already mumbling about the heat, and Victor, silently stewing in the back, trusting and supporting me without question like always.
“Road trip!” Zee announced, as I pulled the van from the curb and watched the hotel shrink in the rearview mirror, my heart sinking
The SOS Hotel would always be our home, and we’d see it again. I had to believe that. I needed it to be safe.
On the plus side, Zee had been right. We did deserve a vacation. Stopping Gideon Cain, Sebastien, and Daisy had not been easy, and a few days away would do us good. So it wasn’t all bad. Kill two frogs with one stone, wasn’t that how the saying went?
If only my older brother were as easy to kill.
But I wasn’t thinking about him, or that.
Only about getting away.
“So, where we goin’?” Zee asked, shuffling down into his seat, getting comfortable for the long drive ahead.
“North.” That was all I was prepared to say, mostly because I had no idea. But north seemed accessible. Just drive right up the I-5 and keep on going, maybe even cross the border into Canada?
“Ugh. Where it rains all the time?” Zee grimaced. “How far north?”
“Oh, just a few hours.”
“Why are you being so cagey? Is it a surprise—wait, don’t tell me! Don’t ruin it.”
“Uhm... yeah?” A surprise for all of us. Even me. “There’s this thing... a uhm portal... you know, they keep popping up everywhere... and Agent Leomaris said we should uh... go take a look... because we’re heroes now. So I thought we’d... you know... do that, and take a break?” Had he bought it? I peeked and found him frowning, but just when I figured I’d already been rumbled, he brightened.
“Business and pleasure. I am here for that.” He shuffled deeper into the seat, propped his boots up on the dash, and turned his head so his purple bangs fell between his horns and over his eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”
“Sure.” At least he wouldn’t be asking any more questions.
A quick look in the rearview mirror showed that Victor had observed the entire exchange, and he was not so easily placated. He held my gaze a few seconds too long—long enough to let me know he knew something wasn’t right—then dipped his chin in a short, affirming nod. If I told him why this had to happen, he’d want to stay. And so would Zee. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t know what having my brother nearby meant.
I couldn’t risk it.
But I was on borrowed time with Victor.
Better he be mad than dead.
As the sun dipped below the endless spiky treeline, and the minivan’s tires droned, my eyelids drooped. If I could just keep going a little while longer...
The road ahead got real fuzzy . . .
I snatched the wheel, yanked the van back between the lines, narrowly avoiding a detour onto the verge.
“Adam, there’s a gas station up ahead,” Victor said cooly from the back. “I suggest you stop. I shall drive, henceforth.”
I couldn’t argue when moments ago I’d nearly wrecked us. Zee, of course, snored softly from the passenger seat, oblivious to having been seconds from disaster.
After pulling the van off the road into a gas station flanked by towering pines, I cut the engine and hopped out to pay and pump gas. A family SUV pulled up on the other side of the pumps. The dad got out to fill the tank of their shiny car, and two kids in the back seat fought with plastic dinosaurs.
The sun had set behind towering fir trees, but our van and the SUV were spotlit by the pumps. Exposed... We’d been on the road all day, but the miles we’d travelled didn’t feel like enough.
I’d moved from one world to another, and that hadn’t been enough to lose Syros, so why did I think a few miles would be?
“Adam—”
I jumped so hard at Victor’s voice the pump nozzle in my hand almost leaped from the van’s tank. I pulled it free anyway, set it back in its cradle and swiped my card, keeping busy so I didn’t have to meet his gaze. “Almost done.”
“Adam, my dear?” His tone meant business with a hint of empathy. Slowly, I lifted my eyes. He’d removed his jacket, and his shirt was all creased from the ride. His expression was soft and sympathetic, and when he looked at me like that all I wanted to do was fall into his arms... He would let it happen, and he wouldn’t even ask why. That was one of the many, many reasons I had to keep him safe.
“I understand that whatever is happening is difficult for you,” he said. “When you are ready to tell us, we are ready to listen.”
My heart wanted to curl up and hide from his kindness and understanding. “It’s uh... It’s nothing. Like I said, it’s just uhm... the thing... for Leomaris. Because we’re heroes now.” Whenever my gaze met his, it skipped away, like two opposing magnets.
“Of course.”
“I’ll just . . . get some snacks.”
Zee poofed behind Victor in a blast of purple sparks. “Did someone say snacks?”
Victor sighed. “Be careful around the gasoline. I’m certain you’re flammable.”
“Fancy Fangs, you wish you were as sparkly as me.” He hair-flicked and strutted past the pumps, pausing to flutter a wave at the kids in the car.
I hurried after him, catching up as he loaded his arms with chips, dips, and soda. “That’s probably enough,” I told him.
“Don’t you want anything?”
“Wait—all that’s just for you?”
He peered down at his bounty. “I’m hungry.”
“It’s just . . . it’s a lot.”
“Kitten, have you seen me? This body has a high aneurism.” He sauntered further down the aisle.
A what now? I kept up with him, and watched as he loaded more snacks into his arms. “Do you mean a high metabolism?”
“That’s what I said. Besides, sugar’s good for you. That’s why they put it in everything. Grab a coffee, I’ve seen dead folks look more awake than you.”
“Right.” I spied the coffee machine and ventured over, leaving Zee to stock up on snacks in all the colors of the additives rainbow. Grabbing a cup, I shoved it under the hot-water dispenser and jabbed at the black-coffee button, definitely needing it.
If we’d driven all night, then we might soon be far enough away to stop and figure out what to do next... because we couldn’t drive forever.
Zee’s raised voice tugged on my attention, splitting it between the coffee machine and whatever he was doing that had him drawing the other customers toward him. A glance over my shoulder found him taking a selfie with the dad from the SUV ... Clearly a fan.
I returned my gaze to my cup and jabbed at the button to dispense coffee. A thick black gloop dribbled into my cup. Was coffee supposed to be syrupy? Were whiskey dispensers a thing? I looked around to find one, but instead spotted a woman waiting in line.
She didn’t seem like someone who demanded attention, like Zee. She was just a young woman in a short white jacket with sewn-on black stars and black leg-hugging pants. I didn’t know her, but something about her demeanor had my instincts twitching.
Instincts that had kept me alive before.
Hot water dashed my fingers. “Gah!” I yanked my hand away from the black-goop dispenser, shook off the water, and glanced over. She’d gone.
No, wait... there she was, heading for Zee, who was still taking photos and chatting with his fan.
Why would she be walking over there?
She reached into her jacket pocket.
Wait... what if... she was sent by my brother? What if she had a gun? What if she was a dragon too? I bolted, skidded around the end of the aisle and tackled the woman around the waist, sending us both plunging into a shelf of tinned goods. Soup rained, although a few loaves of bread cushioned our fall.
“Hey... what the heck?!” The woman shoved me back and clambered to her feet. “Are you crazy?”
Half a dozen faces stared until the store assistant helped me up.
Zee tilted his head. “What just happened?”
“Oh, I uh... I thought I saw a frog. It’s gone now.”
His eyes bulged and his tail contracted, looping around his leg. “There are frogs in here?”
“Yeah, it was real big.” I motioned with my hands, showing about a foot-long gap... which seemed realistic.
“Frogs?” the woman sneered. “There aren’t any?—”
“He just saved your life, lady.” Zee turned toward her, even as he reached for the pile of snacks he must have set down to take the photos.
“Okay, uh, so we should go, I guess.” I grabbed Zee’s arm and pulled him away from the chaos. “Uhm, sorry ... about the mess.”
“My snacks?” Zee whined at their loss.
“We’ll grab some later.”
Outside, Victor waited by the minivan’s open door. He straightened at our sudden appearance. “Am I to assume your haste is not excitement to resume our impromptu adventure, but rather, an escape attempt?”
“Adam just saved them all from a giant frog. Ungrateful assholes.” Zee poofed into the back of the van. “Vic, you take the front, imma stretch my best bits back here.” His wings poofed out, painting the inside of the windows and the roof with purple glitter.
As I made my way around the front of the van and climbed into the passenger seat, Victor side-eyed me from behind the wheel. He didn’t ask, but he didn’t have to.
There hadn’t been a frog.
With a puff of smoke and a rattling cough, the van grumbled to life and we got underway.
A glance back as we pulled onto the road showed the family man by his SUV, watching us leave.
Maybe I was paranoid... Or maybe I’d just saved Zee? How was I supposed to know if someone had good or bad intentions?
I settled in my seat and gazed out the window at the endless treeline rolling by. Had I done the right thing by leaving the hotel and its wards? Could I really protect them by running? I’d been so sure, but now...
How far away would be far enough?