Chapter 30
DELILAH
As they climbed down the ladder, Delilah asked, ‘Is it just me, or has the air got colder?’
‘It’s not just you.’ Heather shivered.
‘I wish it was just you, but I feel it too.’ John craned his neck upwards. ‘The shadows are drifting down. At least they’re only bringing cold air – for now. How far away is the engine room?’
Lucy was in the lead, with Howard and Jaime just behind her. Glancing up, Lucy called, ‘The engine room isn’t a place. It’s a state of mind. Now we’ve all found inner peace—’
‘Speak for yourself. I’m about to piss my pants,’ John mumbled.
‘—we should be able to access the hidden floor.’
‘How did you hide an entire floor?’ Jaime asked.
‘This place doesn’t truly have space.’ Lucy laughed. ‘We’re all dead!’
‘That’s not a satisfyingly logical answer,’ Jaime grumbled.
‘Look!’ Lucy pointed.
Sure enough, just before they reached Floor Violence, a golden door hung in the wall.
Lucy moved round the alcove to open the door first. She waved them in with a flourish. ‘Welcome to my inner sanctum, my pride and joy – the engine room of the Purgatory Hotel for Wayward Ghosts.’
Heat struck Delilah’s face even before she stepped inside.
A narrow steel bridge ran over a flaming pit below.
Cables and wires hung down from the arched ceiling.
The enormous cylinder in the middle looked like an engine, but did not sound like one – it hummed a musical tune.
A thousand different mysterious lights flashed on the walls and ceiling. They cast the room in strange shadows.
‘Whoa.’ Delilah looked around. ‘How do we even start figuring out what’s wrong?’
‘It’s likely the control panel.’ Lucy pointed forward.
‘In all fairness, I haven’t done maintenance against regular wear-and-tear in this place in a century.
I lose track of time too easily. And I was counting on the maintenance crew to be more effective.
There will need to be an overhaul of maintenance when the current crisis is past. I don’t want this to happen again. ’
Delilah stepped on to the bridge, the others behind her. Heat ran up her legs, making her sweat. The flames crackled below. She held on to the railing. Steam puffed from a grate next to the bridge. Oddly, the steam smelled sweet, like Floor Gluttony.
At the other end of the bridge, the metallic walls warped into a shimmering silver cube. The back wall held a giant wheel as if used to steer an old-fashioned ship.
In the middle, a glowing ball crackled and sent out small trails of fire like the living sun.
A perpetual motion machine wrapped around the sun, with seven different wheels tossing balls between the spokes.
Each had been encased in glass as a safeguard.
One golden wheel had gone still. Delilah wondered if that represented Floor Heresy.
There were also several stable silver loops, perhaps representing the less complicated floors, such as reception.
The base was made of hundreds of golden gears, whirring and clacking as they spun.
‘My masterpiece!’ Lucy stroked the edges of the artificial sun, the heat not bothering her at all. ‘It still seems to be running. I don’t understand what’s wrong.’
‘Let me take a look, ma’am.’ John knelt down. He set a toolbox on the floor next to him. ‘The machine is still operational. Perhaps something has got gummed up . . . Oh, dear.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Heather asked.
John fiddled with a screwdriver between his fingers. ‘I don’t . . . I must be wrong . . .’
‘Have more confidence in yourself,’ Heather encouraged. ‘What do you think caused it? Is the heat from the fireball wearing at the parts? Has a ball gone missing?’
John hung his head and did not speak.
Crossing her arms, Delilah put her foot down on the toolbox. ‘Out with it. We’ve all come too far and endured too much for games. What do you know?’
‘Let me check, to be certain.’ John unscrewed the glass case around one of the wheels. The colourful balls seemed to glow with colours beyond a range that could be seen with the human eye. He watched the balls bounce, then reached out and snagged the dullest one.
Everyone gasped. Jaime clung on to Heather’s waist, wide-eyed.
‘Stop!’ Lucy cried. ‘Disrupting the balls will do severe damage to the hotel.’
‘I was afraid of that. This isn’t one of your magical balls, ma’am.’ John held it up. ‘This is a gumball from Floor Gluttony.’
‘A gumball,’ Lucy repeated in numb disbelief. ‘How could a gumball have accidentally ended up in my control panel?’
‘It couldn’t have, not by accident. Not with the glass case protecting all the wheels.
There’s a whole bunch more of them stuck in here too.
They’re stopping the other balls from going where they need to be.
Frankly, it’s not as if a gumball could have passed seven trials, then rolled in here on its own.
’ John swallowed hard. ‘This isn’t a wear-and-tear maintenance issue. The hotel was sabotaged.’