Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

MAR

W ith its intricate carvings and towering spires, the Mournmore Hotel exuded an air of faded grandeur. Menacing gargoyles perched on the eaves, watching over the tall yet narrow building. One of the pedestals was empty. Ivy crept up the stone walls, framing stained glass windows that shimmered in faded and forgotten hues. Whispered secrets lingered in the frigid night air.

Maybe I could find a gargoyle in a shop in Nevermore for my own home to scare away solicitors and visitors alike.

I cracked open one of the massive double doors and headed straight for the reception desk. Something appeared to be moving behind it, like someone was crouched there searching the mottled puke-green carpet for something they’d dropped.

When I reached the desk, I realized my mistake.

The character behind it wasn’t crouched, but standing, at a stature that couldn’t exceed three and a half feet.

He appeared to be poorly chiseled out of a single, jagged piece of stone, with a patch of moss on the top of his head in the shape of hair. He wore a makeshift tunic fashioned from scraps of fabric and fallen leaves. Just below his left shoulder, a name tag marked him as Grit.

I wondered if the moniker was meant to suggest he was hard working and never gave up, or if it referred to dirt. Better not to ask.

Grit waved at me. “Need room?”

Since I had no choice but to spend the night here, I said, “Yes.”

“Good, good. Seventy-three. Cash.”

“You don’t take cards?”

“No.”

Well, at least the room was cheap. At this rate, I wouldn’t have much cash left though, so I hoped everywhere else would be card friendly or I’d need to hunt down an ATM stat.

I set eighty down on the counter.

“No change,” Grit said as he snatched the money.

By his tone, it clearly wasn’t a question. I took it to mean he didn’t have change. It wasn’t like I had a choice either way. I needed the room.

Grit turned to grab a key from the board on the wall behind him. He stretched on tiptoes and angled a bit to the side to try and reach. Then he hopped on one foot, as if needed an extra inch to reach the key he was looking for.

“Eh,” he said as he reached the height of his hop.

I’d offer to help, but saw no good reason why he wouldn’t simply choose a lower key. The board was practically full of them.

“Eh.” Grit hopped again, but this time, a set of tiny, tattered bat-light wings popped out the sides of his tunic, where sleeves definitely should have been.

The wings flapped erratically, lifting the gargoylesque man a few inches higher than he’d reached before. He plucked a key from the board, then landed on the floor. He turned and slapped it on the desk for me.

“Four-oh-nine,” he said.

“Thanks.” I snatched the key, pointed to my face, and asked, “Have you seen this face before?”

“No good face.”

Well, that was uncalled for.

I tried a different tactic. “Have I been here before?”

He lifted his hands up beside his shoulders in an exaggerated, emoji-esque shrug.

“Do you keep a record with the names of your guests?” I asked.

“No.”

“Do you have security footage keeping track of the people who enter and exit the building?”

“No.”

“I need to know if I, a woman wearing all black, with black hair, came into this hotel for a room one week ago.”

“No know.” He shrugged again. “No good face…memory?”

Ah, he wasn’t good at remembering faces, that’s what he’d meant. I nodded my understanding. “Is there anyone else who could have been working, who might remember me?”

Grit looked up at the ceiling, and I wondered if he was looking straight up to where the gargoyles stood sentry on the roof.

“No,” he said.

This time, the word came out slightly higher pitch, like maybe he wasn’t sure, or maybe he was lying.

“I’m willing to pay for the information,” I said. “I’m completely open to being bribed.”

“No.”

I sighed and looked around the lobby. “Where can I find the stairs?”

“No.”

“Seriously?”

“No stair. Elevator.” Grit pointed to one of the two doors at the other end of the room, which I’d assumed were both bathrooms.

Maybe I’d have better luck asking other guests. It was possible someone, at some point, would mistake me for Nie and approach me to talk. I’d cross my fingers, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

My muscles ached with the weight of the day. It had been over thirty-six hours since I’d slept. I needed food. I needed sleep. I needed answers.

Instead of heading up to my room, I decided to walk around town a little more, see if there was anywhere that Nie would respond to the way she had in that bloody alley.

As I walked, I asked, “Did you come to the hotel, Nie?”

She didn’t answer. She was completely still in my bag. I peeked down and checked the eyeholes to make sure she was all right. Her eyes were shut.

My breath hitched. What if Wendy’s magic had worn off? Concern gnawed at my guts.

“Hey.” I gave the bag a little jostle. “Wake up.”

She made a noise, but kept her eyes shut.

Nie was still with me, still alive-ish. Everything was all right. How could I blame her for taking a nap when I myself felt ready to crash on the sidewalk for the night.

I decided then that whatever restaurant I came upon first, that’s where I’d pick up some dinner, and then I could finally go to bed.

That first place turned out to be a general store, repair shop, and restaurant in one.

I grabbed a pack of underwear, a toothbrush, and a few other necessities before heading to the counter, only to find another person I recognized from the midnight market.

Instead of running a random goods stall at the market, Caspian was behind the counter at the random goods brick and mortar store.

“Marnie.” Surprise sent his purple eyebrows straight up to his purple hairline. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m hungry. I’m tired. And I’m in no mood for whatever this is about to be.” I checked the menu board and picked an order.

Caspian pressed his lip tentacles together, likely in disapproval, then accepted my payment and disappeared, hopefully to prepare my food.

“Ffff.”

The sound could have been shuffling, but I could swear it sounded like Nie trying to say something inside my bag.

I froze and waited to see if the noise repeated.

“Marnie?”

I blinked and was surprised to find Caspian standing in front of me, a bag of deliciously greasy smelling food waiting on the counter. I must have been spacing out. I really needed to get some sleep.

“Take the next train out of Nevermore,” Caspian said.

“Why?”

“It’s not safe here for you.”

“Me, specifically? Why? Did you run into me in town another time? Have you seen me here before, Caspian? It’s important.”

He again pressed his mouth tentacles together.

I waited for a response that didn’t come.

Frustrated, I took my food and left.

Back at the hotel, I opened the door to my room only to be punched in the nose by a dank and spicy scent that lingered in the air. As I settled in, I noted that the heater sounded as if a shrieking rat was being mauled by a particularly masochistic owl within the walls. And the best part—the thin mattress was filled with rocks, or at least that’s how it felt to sit on it. I couldn’t wait to see how it felt to sleep on.

Thankfully, my room did have working plumbing, or close enough. The water from the sink came out in orange-Gatorade spurts and smelled like rust. But at least the toilet flushed.

With Nie set up on the nightstand, and a foam takeout container on the mattress beside me, I leaned against the headboard and fumed.

“No one wants to tell me anything,” I told Nie, not expecting a response.

She at least seemed to want to tell me things, but she couldn’t.

Information from the day swirled in my head, a cloudy blur.

I typed Levi Rivers into my phone’s browser.

“What do you think we’ll find about Levi?” I asked Nie. “Private investigator?”

If that was the case, he should definitely have an internet presence to drum up business. So far, though, I couldn’t find anything.

No website. No social media. Nothing.

That in and of itself was suspicious. Even I was forced to use social media for my work at the shelter, and I was the least social person I’d ever met. Levi Rivers was the anti-me. Levi—if that was in fact his real name—probably had extra accounts on every platform, simply to satisfy his pastime of chatting up strangers. His personal motto would be along the lines of a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet . Disgusting.

Still having no luck, I switched to scrolling through images.

“Fffff,” Nie said.

It was just like she’d done inside the restaurant. I wasn’t sure if it was intentional then, but now that she was doing the same thing again, I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence.

It seemed she was attempting to expand her vocabulary from three words to four. I wanted nothing more than to encourage her. The better we could communicate, the more I’d learn about what had happened to her.

But, I had no idea what fffff was supposed to mean.

Maybe it was related to her cause of death, since pretty much all she’d said to me was die die die and die here.

“Fists,” I guessed. “Flame thrower. Fireball?”

The corners of Nie’s mouth twitched downward.

Okay, I wasn’t even close. “Frying pan?”

Her gaze snapped up to mine, her stare a dark storm of intention, recognition.

A bubble of hope swelled in my chest. We were making progress. “That’s it? You were assaulted with cast iron?”

A silent plea for patience etched across her features as she rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling and exhaled a long sigh.

That bubble of hope about our progress—it popped.

“Fff.” Her nostrils flared, and she looked downward and past me.

I followed her gaze.

Nie was glaring at my takeout box like she could will herself to jump off of the nightstand and dive into the container through sheer force of will.

“You’d like a fry,” I said.

“Yes.”

Yes—that was another new word. This was good.

I lifted a greasy potato to Nie’s pale lips. She opened and chewed eagerly.

“I bet once you have some calories in your system, you’ll be able to speak more clearly,” I told her.

But then I looked at the bottom of her neck sitting on the wooden table, which was the only place the food could go.

“Except you don’t have a digestive system,” I told her. “Let’s wait and see how that fry goes before we try another.”

Nie bared her teeth in a display of her displeasure over my suggestion. Apparently she was quite hungry. And angry.

“Agreed,” I said. “I’m furious as well. It’s horrible what someone did to you. I will avenge you.”

Nie’s expression softened. I wasn’t sure if she was appeased or….

“Do…nnnn’t die,” she said.

Not appeased, worried. Of course she was more concerned about my safety than her revenge. I’d feel the same way if our roles were reversed.

“Me dying would be unfortunate, especially if I’m the only whole one of us left. You can’t expect me to walk away, though.”

“No.”

No? No to which part?

I chose to take it to mean she didn’t want me to leave Nevermore, at least not until we had answers.

“Did you really die in that alley?” I asked Nie.

“Yes.”

Good, this was good to have clarification, especially after I thought maybe she was telling me that I was going to die.

“Were you cursed in Piccadilly, so you died in that alley from the curse, by leaving the city?”

No answer.

“Did the curse make your body explode, leaving no trace but a glove and your head?”

No answer.

For now, there was little to do but wait for Nie’s speaking abilities to strengthen.

Other questions pinged through my head, though, and the power to pursue at least one topic of interest remained at my fingertips.

I scrolled through a couple of pages of pictures from my Levi Rivers search, finding no one who even remotely resembled the man in white. I should have found something by now. I was beginning to seriously believe his name wasn’t Levi Rivers.

It was also possible that he worked for The Library, the self-appointed secret organization that policed all things supernatural.

Though I had met Lily, a former associate of the organization, most of what I knew about The Library came from Imogen, whose accounts tended to be told through a glittery and hallucinogenic filter. Librarians traveled through toilets that transported them through time and space. They communed with antler-clad bunnies. They claimed to have access to all of the knowledge in the universe, yet regularly misinterpreted situations, like arresting Andrew for a magical murder Rose had committed.

Levi’s bravado fit my limited impression of what a librarian was meant to be.

“Fry,” Nie said. “Fry. Fry. Fry.”

At least it was better than fffff or her die die die kick from earlier.

“Let’s check the table first.” I pulled my protective gloves on and lifted her. There was no mess on the table. “Looks good.”

Nie’s cloudy eyes lit up like those of a half-starved zombie cracking into a skull. I was fairly certain I didn’t need to be concerned, as Wendy’s magic didn’t create zombies. Only Rose’s bites did that.

Did I look equally ravenous when I was hungry? I guessed so.

“Fry,” Nie demanded.

I fed her another fry, then another, stopping only to work on my sandwich and a few fries of my own. I saved a bit of my bottled water for brushing my teeth, then settled into the bed to rest.

Exhaustion struck hard and fast, carrying me off to a heavy and dreamless sleep.

Scratch.

A quiet yet persistent noise prickled at the edge of my awareness.

Scratch scratch.

I tried to peel my eyelids open. The room was still so dark, there was no good reason to wake up yet. After the day I’d had, I’d earned this sleep. I needed it.

Scratch scratch scratch.

With a sigh, I flopped to my side and forced my eyes open to see what Nie wanted, and how she’d made that noise.

Nie’s eyes were closed. She was asleep, and not making any sounds at all. My unconscious brain must have imagined the entire thing.

Scraaatch.

My blood ran cold.

The noise was real. And it came from across the room. My heart pounded in my chest. Any lingering sleepiness completely evaporated.

I tried to convince myself that it was the heater, but this sound was different than any other I’d heard in the room. Someone was most definitely in the room with us.

The violent thudding in my chest left me paralyzed. I pressed my lips together so as not to gasp. I held my breath, afraid that if I did move, whoever or whatever was making that noise would notice me.

I stared in the direction, not moving any part of my body but my eyes, searching for the unknown threat lurking in the darkness. I found nothing, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

I kept looking.

A flutter of movement caught my eye, not inside my room, but just beyond. A blurry shape lingered on the other side of the glass door, on the balcony.

Was it a person, or something else?

An arm lifted, then dragged a fingernail slowly down the glass.

Scraaaaaatch.

In the darkness, pitch black shadows swirled around the creature. It definitely wasn’t human.

The whites of its eyes flashed to me.

And without a single thought of what came next, my body leapt into motion.

A primal fear took over, propelling me forward in a blur of urgency and pure terror. My breath came in frantic bursts. I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life, and my legs didn’t slow until I was out in the hall.

The door beside mine flew open. Half a second at most had passed since I’d burst from my own room.

A man with golden hair emerged. A man with sharp features and impossibly green eyes. A man wearing colorful sleep pants and a white t-shirt.

He looked as panicked as I felt. And upon recognition of the man standing in the hall with me—Levi Rivers—the impossible happened. I felt relieved.

“Something’s on my balcony,” I said.

At the same time, he said, “Someone broke into my room.”

Crashing sounded in the direction of his room. Then louder, crashes echoed out of both rooms. Were there two creatures breaking in at the same time?

“Do you have any weapons?” Levi asked, which should have been a strange question to ask a virtual stranger, but didn’t feel strange at all.

The dull pocket knife I kept in my bag didn’t count.

I shook my head.

My head….

Realization struck.

With it came an overwhelming sense of horror.

I’d left Nie behind.

“My head.” I ran back into my room.

A huge hole gaped in the wall between my room and Levi’s. The glass door to my balcony was shattered.

And Nie was gone.