Chapter 15
DELILAH
Delilah ran as if she wasn’t wearing high heels. From the tense mood of the guests, she didn’t think they could handle a false fire alarm. They’d probably mob Damien in the lift and trample him. That horrible image spurred her on.
Rounding the corner, Delilah spotted Barbara resting her hand on the red fire alarm, fingers directly on top of the lever with Pull down written in white. From the smirk on her face, she’d just been waiting for an audience. Her fingers closed.
Delilah leapt forward, hands reaching.
Barbara vanished. Delilah crashed to the floor. Her chin struck the carpet. She might have broken a bone if she’d been alive – as it was, she felt winded and stunned. The checked carpet moved in a swirling pattern before her dazed eyes.
Heather arrived moments later. She leapt in front of the fire alarm, both arms extended to block it. ‘Don’t you dare. Delilah, are you all right?’
‘I’ve been better,’ Delilah groaned. She climbed to her feet.
Howard arrived third, panting. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d died when my knees had been in better shape.’
Barbara’s shadow appeared on the wall. Howard jumped, fists raised.
A smile flashed in the air, then the rest of Barbara materialised. ‘Aww, I nearly made you trip.’
‘Do we not have enough problems?’ Delilah spoke to the universe at large more than Barbara. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Barbara held out a hand to Howard. ‘If you come with me, I’ll leave the rest of the hotel alone.’
Delilah lunged forward and put a hand over Howard’s mouth. ‘Don’t do it. That sounds like a demonic bargain. Those are always bad news.’
Pushing her hand down, Howard said, ‘I know, but thank you.’
‘You should have let me yank the fire alarm.’ Barbara tossed back her head. ‘Howard was in the way of the lift. If the guests had stampeded towards him, then Lucy might have appeared to help him.’ She vanished even faster this time, not even leaving a wisp of darkness behind.
Delilah gripped the wall. ‘Why does this hotel even have a fire alarm? We’re all dead.’
‘The hotel could still catch fire,’ Heather said. In response to Delilah’s worried look, she added, ‘It’s never happened in all my decades here. A good thing too, since we have nowhere to evacuate to.’
‘Let’s just break this, or Barbara might be back as soon as we’re gone.’
‘I can disable it back at my desk,’ Heather said. ‘I’ve figured out how to turn off various sirens on my computer.’
‘Good.’ Interestingly, Delilah felt more reassured after the encounter with Barbara, because she’d noticed a few things.
‘Barbara might be powerful, but she seems bound by rules. She avoided touching any of us. She tried to negotiate to get Howard to leave with her, instead of simply kidnapping him. I don’t think she can directly harm people, only cause indirect harm such as startling us or sounding an alarm.
I think we can avoid her, ignore her and temporarily tolerate her pranks. ’
‘What did she want with Howard?’ Heather asked.
Howard frowned. ‘I expect she wants to use me to get at Lucy. I wonder what’s going on between the two of them? Lucy has never mentioned this being.’
‘I bet Barbara was trying to make trouble between us with what she said at the end, to see if we’d backstab you.
’ Delilah put her hands on her hips. ‘Although . . . do you think Lucy would appear if we put you in fake danger? Totally fake, of course! Maybe we could come up with a safe way to dangle you down the lift shaft with a rope round your waist.’
‘It wouldn’t work,’ Howard said. ‘Lucy is a being with a limited understanding of time and human fragility, who comes and goes as she pleases. We’ve known each other for decades.
I can never predict when she shows up. I’ve been in plenty of real danger over my life without her ever appearing – including the time I died.
She’s not watching over me like a guardian angel.
In fact, the first time we met, we were on bad terms. These days, I like to think of us as friends. ’
‘Too bad.’ Delilah sighed. She should have known better than to hope Barbara had anything useful to contribute.
Back at her desk, Heather immediately went to disable the fire alarms. ‘This goes against all my safety instincts,’ she complained.
John stood by the doorway, fiddling with his fingers. ‘Actually, all the fire alarms in this hotel are merely decorative. They don’t work if you pull them.’
‘He’s right,’ Heather said in surprise, moving her mouse. ‘There’s nothing here to turn off. They’re not hooked into the alarm system.’
‘I was worried about that when I first arrived here, but I ran a few tests and this place isn’t flammable.’ John hung his head. ‘Then the others got mad at me for doing unnecessary tasks.’
‘That’s good to know.’ Delilah arched an eyebrow at him. ‘We could have used your help earlier.’
‘I’m not here to help you – I’m here to sabotage you.’ John kept changing his mind about his purpose.
‘You missed your first chance to talk to a powerful demon. You could have spearheaded the negotiations.’ Under her breath, Delilah muttered, ‘Did Barbara damage the lift? No, she made it sound as if she couldn’t break into the hotel until recently.
Although she could have been lying. So far, she has one of the strongest motives. ’
Nefertiti appeared on Heather’s desk. ‘I’m a Billy of the West, I’m a Billy goat’s get. I only mean to joke, can you name me yet?’
‘Huh?’ Delilah stared. ‘I’m lost on that one. Do you mean Billy Wright? Ireland is to the west.’
Nefertiti yowled and turned her head away.
Delilah looked around. ‘Does anyone know any other Irish Billy?’
John pointed a trembling finger. ‘The . . . the cat talks!’
Delilah rolled her eyes. ‘We’ve established that.’
Howard asked, ‘Where do Catholic cats go when they die? Purrrrgatory.’
Nefertiti scratched him.
‘Ow!’ Howard jumped. ‘Everyone’s a critic.’
Nefertiti asked, ‘Why shouldn’t Zeus turn into a swan and creep through a queen’s window?’
Delilah clapped her hands sharply to demand silence. ‘Everyone, Nefertiti uses riddles when she has something to say. I think we should listen to her. Didn’t one of our guests say that Nefertiti sometimes accompanies Lucy around the hotel?’
Everyone gathered around the desk. Heather said, ‘Zeus is disgusting, but I don’t think that’s the answer.’
Delilah bit her lip. ‘Because Zeus didn’t use birth control? Because it’s adultery? Because turning into a swan is not a seduction tactic? I dunno, can you give us another hint?’
Even John got into the spirit of things: ‘Because his wife will become furious and spend a few decades tormenting the children as usual?’
‘Because Hera says?’ Howard asked.
Nefertiti purred and rubbed Howard’s hand. He smiled. ‘I see I’ve been forgiven.’
Delilah clutched her hair. ‘That riddle has nothing to do with Lucy! It’s not even funny.’
In the corner, Jaime closed her book. Before then, she’d been so silent that everyone had forgotten her. Her face took on a sombre look. ‘Hera says means heresy. That’s the answer.’
Nefertiti purred louder. Howard smiled. ‘A pun – I like it.’
Jaime’s eyes held a sadness far older than her body. ‘The answer means that Lucy is on Floor Heresy. My floor.’
Delilah waved at Damien as she climbed down the ladder.
‘Keep both hands on the ladder at all times,’ he hissed.
She chuckled. It was cute that he worried. She couldn’t die. Although what would happen if she fell? Did this shaft even have an endpoint? Or was it just Hell? Maybe she’d better keep both hands on the rungs after all.
They went down with Delilah first, Heather second, Howard third, John fourth and Jaime last. None of them had been able to stop Jaime from following along.
Floor Heresy had the usual waiting room connected to the lift.
Delilah pushed open the door. It was completely empty: white walls, a white floor and a white ceiling.
The lights had died long ago. Delilah shone her torch across the floor, but couldn’t find a spot of colour except for some old dirty footprints.
She felt a sudden flash of pity for Jaime.
When Delilah had first arrived at Floor Greed, she’d been lost and confused.
How must Jaime have felt, arriving at a completely empty floor?
John muttered, ‘There’s nothing here to repair, even if I wanted to try.’
‘Heresy was always a rare sin. According to old rumours from past employees, everything here gradually faded away. It happened as, over time, heresy was no longer taken seriously as a sin in the living world,’ Heather said. ‘Guests stopped being assigned here around the same time.’
Everyone’s gaze went to Jaime. She shrugged. ‘I’m just very heretical, I guess.’
Howard shivered. ‘I thought Limbo was creepy, but this place gives me cold chills. I don’t like places where I can’t see.’ He kept glancing over his shoulder at the door.
Stepping forward, Delilah shone her torch. This room was big, at least twice the size of Floor Greed as she remembered it, and perhaps even larger. Walking across the dusty floor, she called, ‘Lucy? Are you here? We need your help.’
The whiteness simply kept going on forever. Impatient, Delilah walked ahead of the others.
A distant voice came from the darkness. ‘Oh, this won’t do at all.
I have no material to work with. This floor is completely hopeless.
I never thought much of heresy as a sin.
Why shouldn’t people ask questions? I’ll scrap this entire place.
Perhaps it’s time for envy to make a comeback as a sin.
Or fraud? I never did have space for fraud and treachery. ’
Delilah ran forward, chasing that beautiful, bell-like voice. Shining her torch against the wall, she caught sight of a figure.
The woman looked up. She had long white-blonde hair falling in a curtain half covering her face, the strands so pale that the streaks of white blended in.
A proud Roman nose contrasted with very small ears.
A light tan made her skin slightly darker than her hair.
Her age was very difficult to determine.
Wrinkles at first seemed to put her in her fifties, but her round sky-blue eyes seemed much younger.
Then the light changed, her pupils flashed slitted, and her eyes became very old.
She was petite, and her floor-length blue dress made her look even shorter.
Her bare toes poked out. A turquoise necklace sparkled round her neck under the torchlight.
The shadows seemed to creep around her and cling to her ankles, yet her body cast no shadow itself.
No wonder guests had described her as creepy.
There was an odd sense of power and perhaps a hint of sulphur in the air around her.
Delilah smiled in pure relief. After so long chasing false leads, they had done it. They had found the mysterious designer of the hotel. In short order, Delilah would be on her way to Heaven and waving goodbye to the hotel.
Stepping forward, Delilah said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am. The Purgatory Hotel for Wayward Ghosts is in serious trouble. The lift is broken, the floors are damaged and guests are vanishing. Please help us.’
Lucy gasped, then vanished.
Delilah’s ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO’ reached decibels high enough to rupture eardrums. Several guests mistook it for a fire alarm and formed a confused mob in the hallway before realising the emergency lights weren’t lit.
On Floor Greed, a pair of hands put the finishing touches on a sketch of Delilah, then wrote Banned for Eternity underneath. The hands nailed this sign on the door, then floated back inside.