by Lucy Auburn
“In flagrante delicto. Your Latin is horrible.” Reaching out, she patted down a stray strand of hair sticking out of the side of my head and leaned towards me suggestively. “Nothing gets things going like a little adrenaline.”
My breath made tiny puffs of moisture in the air, a bit of winter still hanging on before the too-hot, too-humid summer. “Next time,” I said with a shake of my head, “let’s just get a couple of drinks.”
28
Selena
The next morning as we drove to the Heidelberg Hotel in Leon’s car, someone could’ve cut the tension like a knife through butter—or through a humid Louisiana swamp.
It didn’t help that this was Leon’s squad car, and Naomi and I were sitting in the back together, a grate between us and the front seat. “The nosy officers at the precinct were noticing that my ‘special mission’ was taking a while,” the detective had said that morning, a grimace plastered on his face. “I had to make an appearance to ‘report’ to the captain what was going on. He’s assigning me to a case for a couple of weeks so no one gets too suspicious. I had to show up at a crime scene early this morning.”
Though I didn’t think Leon had that kind of spare time, it seemed he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter; keeping up his job as a detective and his connections at the precinct were part of his duties. And it was clear from how badly the squad car needed a wash that he’d been neglecting those duties for a while.
“You don’t drive this often, do you?” I asked, glancing up to meet his eyes in the rear view mirror. “I guess you mostly drive that black sedan.”
Naomi snorted. “That’s his second vehicle,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
Elah looked over at me, a smirk on his face. “The detective over here has his own steed, like me—a motorcycle.”
I dimly remembered seeing Leon drive it into work once or twice, but I hadn’t realized it was his main car. As way of explanation he said, “After I took you on as an apprentice, and we started working with Naomi, I needed something with more than one seat. I couldn’t exactly have asked you to sit behind me on my bike.”
For a moment I imagined what that would be like: Leon’s broad back pressed up against me, my thighs on either side of his legs, the wind combing through my hair as we careened around curves in the road. It didn’t sound like the sort of thing I’d turn down.
Next to me, Naomi coughed and kneed me, a smirk on her face. When I looked over at her in annoyance she rolled her eyes and made a face, and I snorted. She could be like a teenager sometimes; it wasn’t jealousy for Leon that I sensed, but a kind of teasing that you’d make with a friend.
Which made us... friends with benefits? I wasn’t sure, and the term felt like lead in my stomach when I thought about it. Biting my lip, I turned away from her so that the thoughts in my head wouldn’t show on my face, deeply aware of the two men sitting in the front seat who I’d started sharing moments with as well. And not that far away, recovering from his wounds in the Collective—but not his memories yet, according to Tae Min—was Damen, who I couldn’t stop worrying about.
Given everything going on, I was starting to wonder if we’d even manage to get any work done today at all. But when we pulled up in front of the hotel, which had been abandoned for a while, I felt a sudden and distinct need: to find the Key, stop my mother, and make sure the Hell I’d been trapped in for three months never flooded Earth.
“I have a warrant, courtesy of the day job,” Leon said, leaning over to pull a thick sheet of paper out of his glove box. “The current owner is supposed to meet us here... now, but he may be running late.”
Naomi pulled on the door handle next to her and frowned. “Let me out, Hardwick. I want to stretch my legs.”
The detective chuckled, his blue eyes glancing into the back seat through the rear view mirror. “Maybe I should leave you back there.”
I pouted at him. “But then I’d be stuck, too.”
Ever the gallant knight, Elah got out and came around to the passenger side and opened my door for me. I smiled up at him, sliding off the leather seat and stepping out onto the parking lot. “Thanks,” I murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and trying not to think too hard about our on-again-off-again engagement, which I still hadn’t made up my mind about. “I think if Naomi and I got trapped back there, she’d eat me first.”
“Oh, I’d definitely eat her first,” Naomi said, sliding out after me. There was a suggestive tone in her voice, and in her eyes as she looked over at me, brushing up against my arm as she slid past. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
I elbowed her in the side, burning up despite the February chill. Elah looked back and forth between us, a puzzled expression on his face; on the other side of the car, Leon had gotten out and was coughing into his hand to cover up an obvious laugh. I sighed, wishing fervently that the owner of the abandoned hotel would get here so we could find this damn Key and get it all over with already.
The sexual tension—and aftermath—was going to kill me.
Thankfully we didn’t have to wait for him long. A beat-up brown station wagon pulled into the parking lot, and an older man with a balding head and cheap two-piece suit got out. He looked over at the four of us, then beelined to Leon, who was the only obvious figure of authority standing here.
“I was expecting the cops,” he said, in a thick Southern drawl. “You look like a cop. Who are they?”
Looking over at Elah and Naomi, I imagined us in his head: a dark-haired, sharp-eyed woman in a leather jacket; a handsome young man in plain black clothes with a weird-looking necklace on his chest and a dagger at his hip, which he’d reluctantly traded his sword for at Leon’s insistence; and me, a college dropout with no obvious reason to be here or any amount of authority at all.
Given the way we looked, I couldn’t blame him for deciding Leon, with the badge hung around his neck and professional sidearm in its holster, was the man to speak to. But I could see based on the look on Naomi’s face that she was picturing stabbing him, and had to hold back a laugh.
“These are my associates. Details of the case aren’t public, so I can’t say much more. But I have a warrant here.”
The man barely looked at it when Leon presented the paper, clearly taking whatever he said as fact. With a grunt he eyed us one more time then said, “Let me let you in. The place might be a little damp—it got flooded a while back, and I haven’t been able to get anyone out here to do any repairs, because of those nonsense stories about the place. But it’s in good condition otherwise.”
“Shame you can’t sell it,” Leon said, motioning for us to follow him as he walked with the owner towards the front of the hotel, which rose above us in all its ostentatious glory—and forgotten nostalgia beginning to rot from disuse.
We walked up the wide front steps, towards two white-painted doors that were peeling from repeated run-ins with Louisiana humidity. The owner pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, and jiggled one in the door until the lock clicked. Peering inside, he seemed to think about going in only to decide better—for what reasons, I didn’t know.
“Lock up before you go,” he said, passing the keys to Leon. “You’ve got my number if you need anything, but... hopefully you won’t.”
Then he peeled down the stairs as fast as a man could go, sparing no time for a goodbye before leaving in his station wagon.
“I’m new to Earth customs,” Elah said, “but that seemed rude and hasty even by human standards.”
“It was,” Naomi agreed dryly. “Leon, is it just me, or did this guy not want to spend any time inside the building that he owns?”
“The locals are superstitious,” Leon said dismissively. “We already know that it’s haunted, and we’re prepared to deal with what that means. Just because he’s scared doesn’t mean we should be worried.”
I met Naomi’s eyes, wondering if she also thought the detective sounded overconfident. She just shrugged, dropp
ing back and motioning towards the open door, smirking at Leon. “Gentlemen first.”
He glowered at her. “One of these days, you’ll say the wrong thing to someone with more knives than you.”
“But not better aim.”
I sighed at their back-and-forth, the desire to get today over with overwhelming. Pushing past Leon, I stepped into the foyer of the old hotel, staring around me at the sparse furnishings and layer of dust that’d taken up residence since the place fell into disrepair and disuse. Though I’d expected to feel an overwhelming sense of something—foreboding, danger, spookiness—it just felt like an old building without the lights on.
All in all it wasn’t bad—so far.
“There,” I declared, looking back at Leon with a smirk. “I got it over with. Now, will someone find the light switch and get this place illuminated? There’s no way I’m walking through a haunted building in the dark in search of a mysterious key.”
“I’ll get it.” Leon strode into the foyer and past me, walking over to the varnished wood counter where desk clerks no doubt once checked people in. He ran his fingers along the underside of the counter until he found something. “Let’s see if these light bulbs even work anymore.”
I looked up at the distant light fixtures as he flipped on the switch. Some of the bulbs flickered and burned out, but enough of them worked that the wide foyer was bathed in warm light, chasing away the shadows. It felt less abandoned now; the couches crowded around a distant, unused fireplace and an old mahogany coffee table almost seemed like they’d been recently sat on by someone. Behind me, Naomi and Elah were pushing open the doors to let in more light and air, which helped relieve the stuffy, dusty feeling I got from this place. With the light striking the hardwood floors beneath my feet, I could almost believe that the hotel wasn’t haunted.
“Great.” Twirling around, I searched for a place to start. “Now, what should we expect the Key to look like? Is it literally a key?”
“No clue,” Naomi said, walking over to the bookshelf by the front desk and running her finger along dust-coated spines. “I’ve been warned that there’s a possibility it could be ambulatory.”
I stared at her, disturbed. “You didn’t mention that before.”
Elah asked, “It can walk? Are you saying it’s alive?”
“We don’t really know.” Naomi shrugged, pulling out one of the books and blowing dust off its cover. The cloud of stuff hung in the air and settled on the ground, and I felt a tickle in my throat. “Some of the prophecies say that the Key will walk on Earth. Others say it’ll be carried out of Hell and then back again, which makes no sense if you ask me. A few mention something about it having eyes, though that’s probably a metaphor.”
Leon was opening all the drawers in the front desk, pulling out books and binders he found. “I say we find a map, split up the rooms, and go down the hallways in pairs. If we find any area with an abnormal amount of paranormal activity, that’s our first clue that the Key is nearby.”
“How will we contact each other if we’re split up?” I asked.
In answer, Elah pulled something out his shirt: an amulet, twin to mine, hanging off a thin string. “They’re magic-proof,” he said, his amber eyes reflecting the light all around us. “We should split up, then we can contact each other.”
“Agreed.” Leon motioned between us. “Selena and I will go together—I need to double-check her training in the field, since it’s been a while. Elah, you go with Naomi. She can give you tips on using that dagger.”
The blackfyre knight strode over to where Naomi was standing, still going through the books like one of them might hold secrets. He briefly looked over at me, then at Leon, and I felt the significance of his look with a strange weight inside me. I knew what he wanted me to do: grow closer to his friend, accept both of their proposals to get together, and start some kind of egalitarian love triad. But I didn’t know who Leon was to the darkness in me, and just like when it came to revealing myself to Naomi last night, I felt nervous about opening up.
This was work, though, I reminded myself as I joined up with Leon. He was flipping through a binder for a map of the hotel. He found one, the floors listed in a side view, the rooms in views from above.
“There are six floors, 601 hotel rooms total. You two take the odd-numbered floors, starting with this one,” he said to Elah and Naomi, “while Selena and I take the even-numbered floors. Got it?”
“Yeah sure, whatever,” Naomi said, not even looking up from the next book she pulled from the bookshelf. “We got it. Oh, and pro tip: take the stairs. You don’t want to get stuck in a haunted elevator.”
I swallowed, my mouth going dry at her words. I didn’t know why, but there was something scary about ghosts in a way that even the demons in the Underworld hadn’t been. Maybe it was the fact that their cursed fate lasted for eternity, without end; or maybe it was that they could have faces just like me, lives just like mine.
As Leon headed towards the stairs, I followed on his heels, trying to get over my absurd nervousness. Before we went up, though, I reached out to tug on his sleeve. “If we do find a ghost, what do we do?”
“Just ignore it,” he said, his voice patient. “They feed on fear. If you’re not afraid, there’s not much they can do to you—their powers on the physical plane are limited.”
“Right. Limited.” I dropped my hand from his sleeve, feeling childish and foolish. “They can’t hurt us.”
“Well...” He trailed off, looking sheepish. “Sometimes the more powerful, malevolent spirits can hurt you. But that’s what this is for.”
Reaching into a pocket inside his jacket, he surprised me by pulling out a baggy full of tiny white crystals. I stared at it, absurdly confused. “Is that sugar?”
Leon grinned, a flash of mirth on his serious face. “Salt. It doesn’t eradicate them, but a good handful thrown in a ghost’s face can be unpleasant enough to make them give you space for a while. Here.” He handed me a second baggy, and I tucked it into the waistband of my jeans. “Fire also banishes them, so Elah should be fine. And I’m sure Naomi’s knives will at least bother them—ghosts aren’t a big fan of anything with iron in it, including steel. Reassured now?”
I nodded, embarrassed that I’d even needed reassurance in the first place. “As soon as I get the hang of something, there’s new stuff to fight.”
“It’s a lot, I know. But you’re not alone.”
His words seemed to nestle inside me, like a comforting blanket on top of my chest, weighing me down and keeping me safe. After that, I kept pace on the staircase beside him, no longer quite so worried about the road ahead of me.
I just hoped that when we found this Key, it was obvious what it was. Otherwise we’d be in over our heads, and I had no idea how we’d defeat this thing in time.
29
Naomi
Getting stuck with the blackfyre knight meant having to let him pull open doors for me to go first, all chivalrous and ridiculously fae, but at least he was quiet and could summon fire with his hands.
I’d give anything to be able to light things on fire just like that. Elah seemed reluctant to use his fire in close quarters, though—when we found the kitchen in the back of the first floor had no working light fixtures, I asked him to use his flame as a light and he shot me a concerned look. “We don’t even know if the smoke alarms or overhead sprinklers work. One errant spark could make this whole place burn down. Besides,” he added, “my fire casts very little light.”
So we were stuck doing what we could in the limited light pooling in through the lobby, and the few tiny windows to outside. I didn’t want to risk holding my phone in a free hand when I might need my knives.
The emergency exit door was stuck—I tried shoving it up to let more light in and wound up mostly just bruising my shoulder. “There must be something on the other side,” I grumbled. “Maybe the guy who owns this place is trying to lock us inside and murder us all.”
“Do huma
ns do that often?”
I groaned. “You know, Earth isn’t that different from the Realm of Light. And humans aren’t all that different from fae. Well, other than the short lifespans and the fact that most don’t have magic or strength, and sure they sometimes do mass murder each other—” I cut myself off when I looked over and saw the glint of humor in the knight’s eyes. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Earth when I came here to work on these cases full-time.” His voice echoed as he spoke, since he was poking his head in all the kitchen cabinets like he might find something in them. “But I quickly learned exactly what you said: Earth isn’t all that different in the end. The people are born, they fall in love, they do their best, and those like you and me try to protect them. In the end, we share more than we realize. Even the chocolate tastes the same.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
As we made our way through the kitchen, searching for signs of something, anything that might suggest the paranormal nearby, I found a little corner of my danger senses start to wake up and look around. Trusting my instincts, I let them lead me towards the walk-in freezer, which looked like it hadn’t been cold in a long time. When I put my hand against the thick door every hair on my arm stood on end.
“There’s something going on over here,” I said, beckoning Elah to me. “Think you can use your fire if we find something on the other side of this door?”
“It doesn’t look flammable,” Elah admitted, pulling on his gloves and cupping his hand. “But what might we expect to find?”
“That, I don’t know.” My danger senses were useful, but rarely specific. “I’m guessing, based on this place’s reputation, that there might be a ghost on the other side.”
Elah nodded. “Then we have to open the door. If we find the Key on the other side, it’s my duty as a blackfyre knight to destroy it.”
