Chapter 16
DELILAH
While everyone else on the floor had their hands over their ears, Howard rushed forward. ‘Lucy? Are you still there? I need to talk to you.’
‘Howard?’ Lucy reappeared, floating in the air eye-level to Howard and grinning. ‘It’s been ages! How are you doing? You’re still in the hotel? Haven’t you passed your test by now?’
Blushing, he looked away. ‘I . . . haven’t got around to it . . .’
‘You? Having a difficult time with mere Floor Limbo?’ She poked his cheek. ‘The man who stormed the gates between worlds and stole my favourite ring on the day we met? Oh, for the good old days I spent chasing you around the world, trying to kill you.’
‘That was to help a friend break his contract with you. I did it because I had to do it. Limbo is . . . a different type of challenge. Easier to just avoid forever.’
‘It’s always been easier for you to be brave for other people’s sake than your own.
I misjudged you as a spoiled rich brat when we first met, not knowing you had braved Hell for someone else’s bargain, not for your own greed.
You’ve surprised me in many ways since then.
’ She chuckled and mussed his hair. ‘Don’t think I’ll give you special treatment just because you’ve survived long enough for me to remember your name.
You’ve gotta pass the test, the same as everyone else.
Besides, it’s not as if I want you to go to Heaven faster.
We’d never see each other again. I’ve grown fond of you .
. .’ She coughed. ‘I like to think that we’re friends. ’
‘Friends.’ Howard’s smile held a tinge of pain. ‘I’d be honoured to be your friend, Lucy. Especially given how we started out.’
‘It’s flames under the bridge.’
‘I had a lot of fun dodging all your death traps.’
‘Ah, I still remember that exquisite haunted castle where I almost buried you alive in the basement.’
‘You did bury me alive, dear, for ten whole minutes.’
‘I truly thought I had you that time.’
Delilah coughed. ‘Excuse me? Ma’am? May I speak to you about a matter of great importance?’
Lucy hid behind Howard, a curtain of hair falling over her face.
Howard said, ‘Meet Delilah, a friend of mine. Please, would you hear her out?’
Lucy grunted and whispered in his ear. Maybe, thought Delilah, the hotel designer just took a while to open up, and would become talkative once they were friends.
By this point, Heather, John and Jaime had caught up by following their torchlight. They stood out like haunted shadows in the semi-darkness.
Howard pointed at them all. ‘This is Heather, the hotel receptionist. Jaime, her friend. And John, the maintenance assistant.’
‘That’s a lot of people at once.’ Lucy retreated further behind Howard. Her blue eyes glowed like those of a nervous cat.
Delilah stepped forward. ‘What if I speak for all of us?’ She waved the rest back.
Lucy looked sideways. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to a stranger.’
‘Strangers are just friends who haven’t met yet. I’m great at becoming friends with people. I was head girl in high school.’ Delilah smiled. ‘Is it true you designed this hotel? Floor Greed was beautiful. I have some rage against the hands, but I did enjoy the golden aesthetic.’
‘Howard, I think she’s an extrovert.’ Lucy rubbed her arms. ‘I can’t be around extroverts – they give me goosebumps.’
‘I’m sorry for making you nervous.’ Delilah decided to tell a white lie. ‘I’m actually very nervous talking to you too.’ She threw in some flattery. ‘I have trouble talking to devastatingly beautiful people. I love your hair. How do you get it so shiny?’
Lucy flushed and made a neutral sound. At least she’d stopped fading away.
‘How did you come up with the idea for this hotel? The seven floors are very creative. Is the number seven magical? Why are the floors different from the seven deadly sins?’
Lucy’s eyes lit up. ‘I was inspired by Dante’s Inferno, my favourite book.
’ This subject, clearly dear to her heart, finally unleashed a torrent of words.
‘Is it not the perfect book to describe Purgatory? “In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.” I took the sins from there. It would have been nine floors of sins, except my budget ran out. I thought it more important to have a cafeteria and maintenance level.’
‘I completely agree and feel very grateful for the cafeteria.’ Delilah’s head spun to think that real Purgatory had been inspired by a human story, like a fanfiction turned real. Was there something poetic about humans creating their own torment?
‘I’ve been most unimpressed with the quality of maintenance around here, though,’ Lucy said.
‘Me too. The lift stopped working just as I was about to ascend to Heaven.’ Delilah wiped a sincere tear from her eye. ‘Please help us fix this hotel so that everyone can take their tests and move on to the afterlife.’
‘I was already doing that,’ Lucy said. ‘My beloved hotel, my life’s work, in such a shocking state?
No one could possibly be more upset than me.
I poured my heart, soul and dreams into this place.
Yet I only took my eyes off it for a decade or two, and entire floors have ceased working. I don’t understand how this happened.’
A murmur came from those behind them. Delilah raised her hand for silence. ‘I offer my help in any way possible. I care about what happens to this hotel. True, I was planning to leave, but a good friend of mine works as the lift attendant. I want to restore his home.’
Lucy smiled. ‘I don’t get along with extroverts . . . but I like loyal people. Very well, I will accept your service.’
‘Yes!’ Delilah pumped her fist in the air. Then she schooled her face back into an earnest expression. ‘We all want to help you.’
‘Four of you?’ Lucy scanned the group. ‘I can tolerate that many people.’ Her grip tightened on Howard’s arm, and she told him, ‘Only as long as you stay close.’
‘I wouldn’t leave you alone,’ he assured her.
‘What do we need to do?’ With perhaps too much optimism, Delilah added, ‘Can you snap your fingers and repair this hotel?’
‘It’s not that easy.’ Lucy shook her head.
‘The damage is large scale. Even the testing rooms are failing. In order to repair the tests themselves, we must access the engine room where the control panel is located. I designed this hotel so that only someone who passes all seven trials can enter the engine room. That even applies to myself.’
Delilah gaped. ‘Why?’
‘Because only someone who can pass the tests has the right to judge. Only the pure of heart may touch the control panel.’ The air around Lucy seemed to hum.
Her eyes flashed. ‘The trials are how you prove yourself worthy to change this hotel. I’m no hypocrite.
I won’t impose a test on anyone that I can’t pass myself. ’
The faces around Delilah all looked unhappy. Jaime looked confused. She understood exactly how they felt: all of them were here because they hadn’t been able to pass their test. (Except for Delilah, and she’d passed by dumb luck.) Now they had to beat all seven trials?
Come to think of it . . .
‘You said that we would prove we are worthy to change the hotel by passing the tests.’ Delilah bit her lip. ‘Does that mean if I can beat all seven floors you will listen to my suggestions for reforming Floor Greed?’
From behind her, Jaime asked, ‘And my thoughts on Floor Heresy?’
Heather said, ‘I have a disagreement with how Floor Anger is run too.’
Lucy waved her hand. ‘All of you will have the opportunity to collaborate with me on how to update the hotel . . . but only if you can pass the tests.’
Delilah felt a stirring of excitement. ‘We accept.’
‘We have a deal.’ Lucy took Howard’s arm and started walking in the direction of the lift. ‘We must begin at once. If you fall behind or fail a test, then I won’t wait for you. My beloved hotel is suffering.’
‘To say nothing of the guests,’ Delilah muttered as she hurried after.
‘Are you sure this is how we can enter the engine room? How do we pass Floor Heresy?’ Jaime gestured with her flashlight at the empty walls. ‘There’s no way to take the trial. That’s why I’ve been stuck here.’
Lucy flipped her hand. ‘Since the test is not working, we only need to stand on the floor to pass. All of us have already done that.’
‘WHAT?’ Jaime wailed. ‘Why could I never get the white button to go to Heaven, then? This is ridiculously unfair!’
Lucy fixed the girl with a stern look. ‘The purpose of reaching the engine room is to repair broken floors, so of course I need a workaround if a floor is not functioning. Getting into Heaven is a far more serious matter than getting into the engine room, young mortal. No one obtains entrance without passing a trial properly.’
Jaime hung her head and muttered, ‘Unfair, arbitrary, inequitable, discriminatory, biased, unjust, partisan, unreasonable and unwarranted. I had better be able to change my floor if I pass all these trials.’
They reached the lift waiting room. Lucy stared at the doors gaping open. ‘I see you were correct about the lift no longer functioning. I could have sworn I built it to last a million years.’
‘We can take the ladder,’ Delilah said.
‘Wait!’ John pushed his way forward. ‘I’m not here to take trials and repair the engine room. I came all this way to talk to you.’
Lucy clapped her hands. ‘Floor Heresy has no reason to continue to exist.’
The room they’d left behind blinked out of existence. For a moment, they saw a yawning void as consuming as a black hole. Then even the open door vanished, leaving only the waiting room. Lucy turned to John. ‘What did you want to say, mortal?’
John gaped. ‘Did you . . . just make an entire floor vanish?’
‘Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words,’ she replied with another Dante quote.
‘I created this hotel. I can erase it from existence as easily. I’m only bound to take the tests by my own rules.
’ She raised her chin. ‘Did you only want to state the obvious or did you have a question?’
John lowered his head. ‘Um. Have you ever heard of a strike?’
‘As in a blow?’
‘A labour strike.’
Lucy tilted her head. ‘This appears to be a new human concept.’
John swallowed. ‘What’s your attitude towards employee benefits?’
‘I have been extremely generous with the employees of this hotel, offering eternal paradise for only seventy years of labour. Originally, it was seven hundred years, but I didn’t get enough applicants.’
John twiddled his thumbs. ‘What would you do if your employees wanted to be paid?’
‘Laugh?’ Lucy shrugged. ‘I do not have this mortal thing called money. If anyone doesn’t like the job, they are free to take their tests. You have nothing to offer me that I could not take by force. Who would be presumptuous enough to complain about my generosity?’
John lowered his head further. ‘What if a group of employees refused to work without more benefits?’
‘Is that a threat?’ The scent of sulphur around Lucy thickened. The air grew hotter. Her teeth and nails seemed sharper.
‘No, no!’ John waved his hands. ‘More of a negotiation between you and a group of employees banded together.’
‘I hate talking to large groups of people.’ Lucy shuddered. ‘I would simply make all of them vanish.’
‘Vanish?’ John glanced behind him, at where there had once been a door.
‘If I was feeling benevolent.’ Lucy smiled with a mouth full of fangs.
John gulped. ‘Ma’am, I wanted to tell you that your hotel is very beautiful. It’s my honour to be here. I will do everything in my power to help you repair it.’
‘Good man. I appreciate your service.’ Lucy turned away.
‘Howard, hold on to me.’ She stepped over the edge, into the shaft.
But she did not fall. Instead, she floated up into the darkness.
Though she had no wings, a sound like a fluttering of feathers filled the air.
Holding on to her, Howard floated easily alongside her.
John wiped a hefty amount of sweat off his forehead.
Delilah sidled up to him and slung an arm round his shoulder. ‘I saw that.’
‘We both did.’ Heather put an arm round his other side. They sandwiched him like two cats with a trapped mouse.
‘You chickened out at the last minute.’ Delilah poked his cheek.
‘A wise move.’ Heather smirked. ‘I did try to warn you.’
‘You’d better keep your promise to help us repair the hotel.’ Delilah’s cheerful tone did not match her evil grin. ‘Or else we’ll tell Lucy all about the strike.’
Heather lowered her voice. ‘Or, worse, we’ll tell her that you called her beloved hotel “a piece of junk”. I wonder what she’d do to you then?’
‘Glad we had this talk.’ Delilah released John.
The two women skipped away, leaving him a trembling puddle behind them.
Grabbing the ladder, Delilah called up at Lucy, ‘Where are we going?’
Lucy shouted over her shoulder, ‘Let’s start with the easiest. Floor Gluttony.’