Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

"This hotel is a fucking death trap," Zee said, striding through the bar door carrying a thick down jacket. His tail swooshed , and his wings bounced. The left wing was bandaged and bound closed, ruining his black-and-purple silk shirt and pants aesthetic.

I'd just gotten seated at the bar after a restless night's sleep in my own bed. Alone. I'd hoped on waking, I'd find the disaster at the docks had been a dream. But those hopes were quickly dashed when I stubbed my toes on the bathtub and nearly passed out.

"There are sharp edges everywhere," Zee went on. "What schmuck is in charge of keeping our guests safe?"

I raised a hand. "That's me."

"Kitten, you're terrible at it. There are bare wires sticking out the elevator panel and splinters where the carpet's threadbare." He draped the jacket over my shoulders, and patted my bouncy hair. "There."

"What are you doing?"

"This hideous jacket will keep you safe. "

He'd wrapped me in the clothing equivalent of bubble wrap. "Thanks, Zee, but I don't need this."

"Yes you do." He sat on the stool next to mine. "And don't go touching any bare metal. Or plug outlets. Light switches. Just stay here. With Tom. I've got Little Jimmy and his crew checking for anything that might cause a human instant death. Humans die real fuckin' easy."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm fine." Although the jacket was puffy and warm. At least Tom wouldn't treat me like a fragile piece of art. He didn't seem all that concerned after I'd given him the summarized version of last night's big ol' screw up.

Tom handed me my breakfast whiskey. "Zodiac, do you need some alcoholic remedy for that wing?"

I picked up my glass, eager to get some of the heated good stuff warming my insides, and took a sip. Tepid, herbal wateriness ran over my tongue. Gagging, I squirted it back into the glass. "Tom, what's this?!"

"That is tea," the bartender said politely.

I gaped at him.

"Decaffeinated," he added, and the word landed like a stake through my heart. "We can't have you becoming an alcoholic. One hundred and seventy-eight thousand people die from excessive drinking each year."

"You've been serving me breakfast whiskey for six weeks," I spluttered.

"That was when you were clearly not human." He poked my drink back toward me. "Drink up, it's good for you. Probably. What do I know about tea?"

"Tom's right." Zee nodded enthusiastically, making his horn-ring jingle. "Lots of anti-toxic-ants in tea."

They were ganging up on me.

"It's antioxidants ," Victor corrected.

Zee flapped a hand. "That's what I said."

"You're both being ridiculous." My mood soured. I'd been looking forward to that whiskey after the night I'd had, and now I couldn't even have that.

"They are both right, Adam," Victor agreed. "You must be careful."

I harrumphed at Victor's voice joining the intervention crowd. "Not you too. I'm fine ."

"We all wish that were true, but it is not the reality." Victor sat to my right, and of course Tom served him his usual tea, with a little splash of whiskey, just to drive the final nail home.

He saw me eyeing his little teacup. "Ah, yes. Sorry." He sipped it anyway.

"It's only been a few hours, and you're both driving me crazy with the overprotectiveness. I'm not about to suddenly drop dead."

"Humans do that all the time," Zee said. "Their little hearts stop for no reason. One guy fuckin' died on me right in the middle of a blow job. I'm into a lot of things but dead dick is not one of them."

"It's true," Victor agreed.

"Don't you prefer dead dick?" Zee asked Victor.

"I'm referring not to the demise of your unfortunate sexual partner, but rather Adam's highly vulnerable state."

"Neither of you knows much about humans then, because they're real tough, actually." Probably. "Humans can do all sorts of crazy human things."

"Such as?" Zee asked. Victor waited patiently too, sipping his tea.

"I can't think of any right now, but they do. They save whole whales. I've seen it."

Zee blinked. "None of us are whales."

"Tom, help me out here?"

"You're on your own with this one. "

I angrily sipped my now-cold herbal tea. "This tastes like my mood."

"But it's guaranteed not to kill you," he said cheerily.

I was going to have to fix this, and fast. But there wasn't any chance of that without having that pearl of concentrated me-juice back in my possession. Somehow, I had to get Gideon Cain to hand over the one thing that had made him powerful beyond belief.

"How are you even human? How does that work when you were never human?" Zee asked.

I'd been thinking on this all night, while failing to sleep. "My glamor's gone, but when Gideon did the thing and stole the real me, I think whatever was left turned me into something I was trying real hard to be. I'm human, but not." I shrugged. "Human enough to bleed, I guess." I picked up my tea and muttered, almost inaudibly, "Human enough to be allured."

Zee cringed. "Oh fuck, is that why you slept alone last night?"

"Yeah." I grimaced.

"I had not considered that." Victor's scowl darkened. "Then you are also susceptible to my innate ability to ensnare and manipulate humans with my voice."

They both looked shocked as realization sank in. Until I was fixed, they had to stay at arm's length—including in the bedroom. No more earth shattering sex. No more threesomes.

"Tom." Zee tapped the bar. "Gimme some class A drugs, stat."

"Coming right up?—"

"No, no, we don't have that," I butted in.

"I'm sorry, sir. We do not have that." He winked at Zee.

"I see you winking, Tom."

"What, this?" Tom gestured at his face as he winked again. "'Tis a mere programming glitch, sir. "

"I do have some good news," Victor said, steering us back on track. "Agent Leomaris left a message with Madame Matase a few moments ago. The commissioner has been arrested, charged with abuse of office. All the imprisoned Lost Ones with slim grounds to hold them will be freed within a few days."

I puffed a heavy, relieved breath. That was good. And it almost made losing my power worthwhile. Almost. Not really. I really needed to be me again. Being human was… not what I'd imagined.

"We should throw a party to welcome Claymore home," Zee said. "And a real finger up to Cain so he knows we don't care about his stupid world-domination plan. Kitten, you can't come. It's too dangerous. I'll bring some cake to you."

I glowered.

"Have you seen the assholes that come through the hotel doors? Most of them are fuckin' unhinged. Look at Fancy Pants, our first guest. Unhinged, lunatic, mass-murdering, human-hunting, blood-drinking psychopath. You can't go near him."

"There's only one of us who's unhinged," Victor said, side-eyeing Zee. "Zodiac is right, however. If you had been anything close to human in these past few weeks, you'd have perished several times. If our enemies discover you're vulnerable, the hotel wards are unlikely to be enough to keep you safe, despite their recent expansion."

"They won't discover it. And I'll be back to normal real soon. I just need to get that bead back." And get a whiskey.

"And how are you going to do that? Gideon Cain isn't going to let you anywhere near it, and just in case you didn't notice..." Zee jiggled his bound wing. "He swatted me like a fly, and Victor like a golf ball, without touching us."

Cain really had showed us his true sorcerer colors when he'd swept Zee and Victor aside as though they were no more nuisance than buzzing mosquitos. "I should have eaten him when he unleashed Shadow on us."

Nobody argued with that, and for a little while we sat in muted, contemplative silence.

But there would be a way to get to Cain.

We still had resources, and a whole lot of people who would help. Being human didn't change that.

"I don't know how to fix me. Yet . But I will figure it out."

"We need someone inside Cain's circle of trust," Zee mused aloud, swirling the last dregs of his cocktail. "Someone who can get close to him, who Cain will underestimate. Someone he won't see coming."

"But does such a person exist?" Victor asked.

A commotion sounded in the lobby outside the bar. Raised voices, a clang of a table or chair falling over. We all turned toward the doors a moment before they flung open. A familiar spiral-horned, bejeweled-winged, unwanted guest had arrived.

Sebastien.

Zee hopped off the bar stool. Victor tensed beside me. Technically, the wards meant we couldn't hurt each other, but the wards had loopholes.

Tom's cha-chunk of a shotgun was one of those loopholes.

"This is a sanctuary for all, ain't it, you fuckfaces?" Seb strutted forward on black and white shiny leather shoes.

Behind him, Madame Matase poked her head in, frowning. She'd tried to keep him out. I waved her off, we'd deal with him.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"What do I want?" He pressed his white-painted fingernails to his chest and grinned, swaggering over. "Stupid human. It's not what I want that you should be interested in. It's what I can do for your skinny ass." He tapped the bar counter in the universal signal to be served. "Barkeep, hit me up with the most expensive, most potent drink this shithole serves. Demon bait is paying."

Tom's polite smile held a murderous edge behind his shouldered shotgun. "Potent, you say? I got some potent shots right here."

Before Tom blew Seb's head off, I needed to know what Seb thought he had that made him so valuable. I held up a hand, pausing Tom's murderous thoughts. "Alright, I'll bite, Seb. What have you got?"

"Better fashion sense than you. What the fuck is that jacket you're wearing?"

"Get to the point, dickface." That came from Zee.

Seb smirked. He was going to soak up every second of this moment. He eyed Victor's resting face and huffed, then fluttered his fingers as though Victor meant nothing to him anyway. Finally, Seb's pale eyes found me again. "Give me a room in this shit stain of a hotel and and I'll give you the means to stop Gideon Cain."

"He's not staying here," Zee said. "You can't trust a word that passes his fucking lips. It's all bluster and bullshit."

But if he truly did have a way to stop Cain?

Zee read my face. "Kitten, nuh-uh, noo. Bad idea."

I gestured for Tom to lower the shotgun and get Seb that drink. "I'm listening."

The crazy hotel shenanigans come to an end in the final SOS Hotel book...

Book 7, Your Final Resting Place