Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hunter on proper maintenance of hotels and boyfriends
Two weeks later, I showed up for work with my tool belt. Since getting back to Philly, both of us had gone straight to work at the hotel. I wasn’t all that handy at construction, but I could hold up drywall or sand drywall or paint drywall. God, I was so sick of drywall.
Regge had a meeting that morning, but I was sure he was back here somewhere. He’d been working on a special project he wouldn’t elaborate on.
I nodded to Pery when I came in.
“Hey, Hunter, Barry said he needs you on the third floor.” He stood close to the bar’s entrance, some kind of power saw in his hand. I didn’t argue with him.
I dodged more wolves as they ripped up the carpeted stairs. “Hey guys, how’s it going?”
My question was met with a grunt, two growls, and a good morning. The last being from Skylar, Pery’s mate. Flashing her a smile, I rounded the corner to take the back stairs to the third floor.
Being a giant, Barry was easy to spot at the end of the hall. His usual muted plaid shirt stretched across shoulders so broad he had to turn sideways to get through our doors.
He’d moved back into the hotel last week, saying he couldn’t be in my small apartment another day.
The good thing about Barry, besides rarely needing ladders or being easy to find pretty much anywhere, was that he was good with electricity.
He didn’t generate his own spark, but he could transfer hot wires from one place to another without damaging himself or burning the place down.
All wins in my book. Theo had called him a conduit—a fae term for whatever his ability was.
I supposed conduits were specific to a certain element.
Fire, air, etc. Barry’s was electricity.
By some miracle, he also had his certifications and paperwork so we would pass the city’s inspection.
“Hunter, Ima glad to see ya, laddie. Come ’ere.” His thick brogue rumbled down the hall.
As I approached, he reached up into a hole in the ceiling, and with a twist of his wrist, the overhead inset lights came on all the way down the hall.
“Oh, hey. That looks great.”
Barry surveyed his handiwork, giving me a shy smile. He swiped a big hand against his sweaty brow. “Aye, this is pretty simple stuff, but I need fer ya to see this.” He lumbered over to an open closet, totally blocking the view.
Slipping around to stand in front of him, I peered inside the narrow space.
It had enough room for an upright vacuum cleaner and three shelves, empty at the moment.
At the back of the closet was a large electrical panel, circuit breakers exposed, some wires hanging.
A slight crackling sound sizzled along the wires.
Barry reached over the top of me to touch a fat finger to the sparking wire. The sparking stopped immediately.
“There be sparkies here, lad.”
Barry wasn’t a pleasant-looking being. His brow was too pronounced, his eyebrows too bushy, and most of his features were over the top. But his blue eyes projected an unusual kindness. And his accent made me smile. Even if I didn’t understand him for half of it.
“Sparkies?”
“Aye. Sparkies. Power. Real power. Knack.”
That was a word I understood. Theo used knack to describe his magical ability.
In discussions with the gang over the past couple of weeks, we agreed there had to be a draw for so many others to have made the Hotel Fulbright their home.
Like Pinkie’s had the portal. But there was no portal here.
Izzy told us the hotel was located on a ley line—an energy line underground.
But it was a single line, not an intersection—so no portal to other realms. But the necromancer had insisted there was a source of power here.
A magical well of energy. Maybe Barry had found our draw.
“This side o’ the panel’s hooked tae the grid. The big, clunkin’ power grid for the toon. But this bit here—” His massive index finger tapped the right side of the circuits. “This one’s tappin’ intae some other source. An alternate one. That’s yer knack, fer sure.”
“Where is this… knack?” I asked.
Barry shrugged his big shoulders. “Kenny’ll ken.”
“Kenny the bartender?”
“That be Lenny, Kenny is yer downstairs lad.”
“The maintenance guy.” I nodded. Kenny and Lenny were so identical in looks and demeanor that we were convinced they were the same employee. We never saw both of them at the same time. In fact, Regge only issued one check. To a single employee named Leonard Kenneth.
“So can we use this knack to like run the HVAC system? Or the lights?” I loved the idea of not having to pay a thousand-dollar electric bill every month.
His heavy brow crinkled. “No’ regular. It’s a fickle bastard. Comes an’ goes, like a cat in heat. Too risky fer a blowout. But as a backup? Aye, nae bother. I kin rig up a wee cascade fault.”
I sighed. “A what?”
“A switch, lad. If the grid buggers aff for mair than five minutes, then the knack kicks in, gives the hotel a wee jolt, an’ runs the show till the main sparky’s back tae workin’ proper.”
“Barry. You’re a genius. Thank you. This knack power isn’t going to like zap anyone if they plug in their phone, right?”
His bushy brows crowded together to create one large black bottlebrush on his forehead. “I dinnae say that. I kin make sure it be safe fer ye numpties.”
“Ah… okay. Thanks.” I stepped aside as Regge hailed us from the other end of the hall. I’d just seen him at breakfast, but his grin was infectious as he jogged up to chat with us.
“Hey Barry, how fares our lighting? I see you got the hallway sconces working. Well done.”
The giant’s wide face turned a shade of pink as he ducked his head. “Cheers, Boss.”
I urged Barry to explain our alternate source of power. After listening, Regge looked thoughtful.
“Would it be possible to create some sort of looping mechanism that would alternate this well of power with the city’s power grid?
Say twenty-eighty? Twenty percent knack power, regulating it against power spikes of course, and eighty percent city power?
That would reduce our electric consumption by the same amount. ”
“I kin give it a wee think, aye.”
Regge slapped Barry on the arm. “Good man.” He turned to me. “Let’s go have a look in the basement.”
We headed down the basement stairs.
“That was a brilliant idea, Reg.” I wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, giving him a little shake. “How did the insurance meeting go?”
“I gave a man an exorbitant amount of money, and we are now fully insured.”
I opened the steel door on the ground floor of the hotel and ushered him down more stairs. Halfway down, the usual graying out of an impending vision halted me.
“Hunter?” Then everything went black. The vision came with a flash of light and the sound of a gunshot. A man flying through the air, claws out, before he crumpled to the floor of the lobby. The vision was gone as fast as it had come.
“Trouble.” I didn’t wait. Taking the stairs two at time, I made for the lobby. Rounding the corner, I was whipped around, an arm coming over my chest and the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against my temple.
“Easy.” The stench of garlic wafted over me as he spoke. “We don’t want no trouble.”
But trouble there was. I froze in the man’s clutches and watched, horrified, as Pery came flying off the main staircase toward another gunman. It was my vision. A gunshot reverberated in the hollow room. Pery, half shifted into his wolf form, yelped as he fell to the floor.
Everyone scrambled; more shots rang out. Growls and shouts from the workers as they, too, started to shift—their claws out, jaws elongating to reveal sharp canines.
“Nobody move!” the man shouted, wrenching me closer to him.
“Dude, that was my ear.”
He pressed the gun harder into my temple. The workers stopped, their hands—some sprouting claws—were up, and they backed to one side of the room. The third man, looking like he might shit himself any second, held a gun on them.
Regge emerged from the basement, and my captor waved him into the middle of the room. With a glance at me, he put his hands out to the workers.
“It’s okay, guys. Just stay calm.” He looked at the man who held me. “You’re back. What the hell do you want now?”
I turned my head slightly to see the man who’d chased us onto the balcony weeks ago. What had Julian called him? Shorty. Yeah, that was it.
The man who’d shot Pery, waved his gun casually at the wolves.
“Is that a pink gun?” I couldn’t help be ask. The young kid next to him lost his nervous look and smirked.
“See? I told you it was a pussified piece to carry.”
Pink gun guy turned to him, gun waving. “It shoots perfectly fine. Just ask that guy.” He indicated Pery still on the ground. I struggled briefly, wanting to help, but I knew unless the bullet was silver, Pery would heal.
Pink gun guy was still defending his weapon of choice. “It was my mom’s okay? She wanted me to have it when she passed. And it’s not pink. It’s dusty rose.”
Shorty squeezed my collar bone as he held me. “Where’s Eskridge?”
“Who?” I asked innocently.
“Eskridge. Julian Eskridge. I know you know him.”
Regge was quick to recover. “He’s dead.”
Shorty flinched. “You’re lying.” Though his sudden tension against me said he believed Regge.”
“Mr. Eskridge was a passing acquaintance, at best. So why would we lie about his death?” Regge glanced longingly at the empty front desk. I knew he was itching for the sword stashed behind the counter.
I spoke quietly, the calm belying my thundering heart. “As my partner said, we’re not friends. We barely knew the guy.”
The man released me, and we faced each other. I frowned at the gun pointed at me. “Could you put that away? It’s making me nervous.”
“You hear that, Shorty?” Pink gun chuckled. “We’re making him nervous.”
Regge had edged closer to the counter now, his eyes sending messages to me. All he needed was a quick distraction and he’d have the sword. And Mafia heads would roll.