Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Shadow lived in the attic, which meant it was free of gremlins. The next floor down was the floor my room was on. And the portal. We'd start on that level, and try to clear each floor of gremlins as we went. Madame Matase had relocated our few remaining guests, so we didn't disturb or alarm anyone. Now all we had to do was catch the gremlins.

Victor was fast. He'd catch them easily—if he could find them. Zee would use his tail as a lasso. That left me... with my powers of persuasion? I'd figure something out.

Now we each had a trap, we spread out, heading toward our allotted rooms, and Operation Gremlins Gone got underway. My suite was one of the finer rooms, and still smelled like fresh paint and clean linen. As I entered, there were no immediate signs of gremlins, but I'd take a quick look around to be sure. Firsthand experience had taught me, they usually came in through the bathrooms.

Everything seemed clear until I opened the closet in the main bed area, revealing a gremlin-sized hole in the drywall, near the floor. That was not a good sign .

After setting the cage down, I got into the closet and eyed the head-sized hole.

I definitely was not putting my head in it.

But how was I supposed to tempt any gremlins out?

The lock snicked on the suite's entrance door. Someone was coming! I could have acted rationally and told the returning guest I was the hotel manager, looking for gremlins. That would have been the sensible thing to do.

Instead, I shut myself in the closet and held my breath.

Shoes scuffed the soft carpet. There wasn't supposed to be anyone on this floor. What were they doing here?

"Adam?" Victor asked.

I sighed out the breath I definitely did know I'd been holding.

Then remembered, he'd probably want to talk about the Lost Ones Prophecy that he'd guessed was all about me, since he'd read the Wilson's Guide .

Not good.

Maybe he wouldn't know I was in the closet?

Peering through the crack where the door met the frame, I spotted Victor heading over.

"Are you hiding in the closet, Adam?"

"Uh, no?" I remembered the hole. "I'm gremlin hunting. Shh, they'll hear you."

He stopped on the other side of the door and waited a few beats. "Adam?"

"Yeah?"

Victor hesitated. "Shall we talk through the door or would you care to open it?—"

"Maybe another time?" I whispered. "I'm waiting for the gremlin?—"

Victor opened the door.

I pointed at the hole. "See?"

"While we have much to discuss, those impending issues are not why I'm here. I came to say I have successfully trapped a gremlin, but from the cacophony coming out of Zodiac's room I suspect he may require some assistance."

The room's door lock snicked again and voices sailed in.

"—sure I left a bag. I'll just check. Come in, let's talk some more?—"

I grabbed Victor, hauled him into the closet, and clicked the door closed, sealing us in the dark. Victor had to stoop to my height, while frowning.

"This is unnecessary," he whispered. "You are a manager?—"

"Shh." I peeked through the slit again and saw the guest enter. A demon... No, wait... A demon and a human woman. They chatted about a missing bag as they headed toward the bed.

"Adam, this is a violation of privacy?—"

"It'll look weird if we go out there now." I glanced at Victor's face to see his arched eyebrow over a puzzled expression. Squished into the corner, he looked a lot less Baron Reynard and a whole lot like my Victor . He'd left his whole life behind, left everything to join us at the hotel, and now he was squished in a closet with me.

I smiled, because he looked silly and adorable. He rolled his eyes, but almost smiled back.

"How's the stay going?" The human woman was asking. "Much happening?"

"It's pretty crazy." The demon lifted the bed sheets and scanned under the bed. "Huh. I was sure I left it there." He straightened and headed for the dresser, out of our line of sight. "I thought Cain was off his head offering me so much cash to stay, but there's definitely some weird shit going down here."

Oh dear.

Victor's eyes narrowed. He twisted in the small space, leaned against my side, and squinted through the gap between the doors. Warmth radiated off him, and there was that delicious, spicy cinnamon and clove aftershave he used. Assuming he shaved. He was always so smooth-jawed. Did vampires grow whiskers? I could just reach out and touch?—

"The barman looks at me as though he knows ten ways to kill me," the demon continued. "The walls are riddled with vermin, and the owner... the cute, nice guy? He has axe-wielding psycho vibes."

I mean... Technically, he wasn't wrong. Although I didn't use an axe.

"Anything insidious?" his human companion asked.

Victor and I leaned closer together, cheeks almost touching, our faces lit by a thin needle of light spilling between the closed doors.

"Only—"

The closet door flung open.

Light flooded in.

The demon guest blurted, "What?!"

I opened my mouth to explain and nothing came out. Where to even begin? Hi, I'm the axe-wielding psycho. Sorry about listening in, but also, you're spying for Gideon?

"As you can clearly see." Victor smoothly stepped from the closet, unfolding himself to his full height. "There is a gremlin hole here and it is imperative the gremlin is caught immediately. So if you'd be so kind as to head for the door, any lost bag will be forwarded to you." Victor guided them away before the shock wore off and they asked why we'd been spying on them. "Hurry along now. It's a good thing you arrived in time. Any later and the gremlin might have attacked," he continued, making it clear they were lucky to have survived what could have been a terrible gremlin encounter.

With the guests distracted and sent off, Victor returned a few moments later and stopped beside me. We both stared at the hole in the wall.

"That guest is spying for Gideon Cain," I said.

"Not really a surprise. This is a hotel, where everyone is free to come and go. Gideon sending spies was only a matter of time. He's likely not the only one."

What if all our guests had been spies? "I suppose."

A scratching sounded behind the drywall.

Victor grabbed the trap and flipped it open. "Get ready to grab it."

"Sometimes it feels as though the hotel walls are closing in," I said. "Do you know what I mean?"

Victor inched toward the hole. "I do, Adam. Be ready, should the gremlin flee?—"

"I thought the wards would hide me. And they did, for a while. But then things happened, and I guess hiding was never going to be a long term plan. If I had a plan, which I don't."

He glanced over his shoulder. "Perhaps it might be prudent to focus on the more immediate problem of the gremlins?"

"Yeah, but also, I've had nobody to talk to about this. Which is my own fault, I know, but also, everyone I've told in the past or anyone who found out about me, they'd freak out and then try and kill me because... you know... the prophecy says I have to die and hand over my heart. It's not me who saves the world, by the way, it's my heart . Which means every time anyone discovers who or what I am, they go straight to the stabbing part, which gets real tiresome after a while. Oh, you want to be friends? Wait, you're the Prophesied One? Stab stab ." I mimed some stabbing, then the me dying part. "Nobody wants to know me . Dragons are bad. We set fire to things, kidnap maidens—whatever that means. What is a maiden? I'm not a bad person. I don't think I am. Am I? "

"Adam." At least he sounded sympathetic. "Perhaps we can focus?—"

Scratching noises scurried along the wall toward the hole.

"Never had a lair either," I went on. "I don't think I'm a very good dragon, or at least everyone's definition of one. I mean, I guess I have eaten people. But some people need eating. It's not a choice?—"

"Adam!"

The gremlin shot from the hole and launched at my face, because of course it did. It's always the face.

Victor swept the trap through the air and slammed it down, capturing the gremlin inside. The little creature screeched and bounced inside the grated metal walls, probably swearing in gremlinese.

"Yeah, I know that feeling little buddy," I agreed with it. "Trapped, doomed, no way out."

Victor huffed, flicking his long hair back as he rose with the trap in his hand. "Adam, my dear. Unfortunately, these gremlins are unlikely to entrap themselves. Shall we continue the task of catching them all, and then discuss other , more personal developments after? Preferably with tea and wine?"

"Yes. Good talk." I took the cage, and its gremlin. "It feels good opening up to you. You're a good listener, Victor. We should talk some more. Later. Much later? Tomorrow? Next year? Right, let's go help Zee."

"Adam." Victor stopped me at the door, his firm hand on my arm. "I don't think you're a bad dragon, or a bad person. Perhaps, merely a lonely one. And I'm always ready to listen. Anytime, day or night. It is the least I can do."

I squeezed his hand. "You're too good for me."

"Oh, I sincerely doubt that."

"Hm, I've done bad things."

"I don't doubt that, but I've had a lot longer to collect mistakes. I can assure you, I've done more. "

Were we really trying to out-villain each other? I chuckled at the absurdity of it all.

We found Zee outside ground zero, also known as my room. From his mussed hair and twisted clothes, he'd clearly had an interesting time catching his gremlin. Although, the poor thing was now scrunched in a ball at the back of Zee's trap, its little knees drawn up and tucked under its folded arms.

"I am so ready to be done with gremlins. You ready?" he asked us.

"Not really." I grabbed the bedroom door handle. The gremlins already in the room were unlikely to react well to seeing their kin shoved into a portal. But what other choice did we have? Taking a deep breath, I mentally steeled myself for the carnage and, opening the door, I peeked through the gap.

The gremlins had . . . gone.

The room looked as though a tornado had ripped through it, but the riot—the gremlin orgy—was over.

"What is it?" Zee asked. "Is it bad? Ugh, fuck, is there a dead guy? Do I have to replace the fucking carpet again?"

"No, it's not that..." I shoved the door fully open and drifted inside.

The portal remained, throbbing like an open wound above my old bed, but we were alone.

"Perhaps they went into the portal already?" Victor suggested, inching inside the room behind me.

"We aren't that lucky." I set my cage down and peeked under the bed. Nothing. "Check the bathroom."

Zee vanished into the bathroom and came back shaking his head. "I don't like it."

"Maybe they saw the gremlin-extermination guy and decided to behave?" I eyed the throbbing blob. "Or the portal did eat them? "

"Well. They have clearly vacated." Victor put his caged gremlin down. "Shall we deposit these and catch more?"

I eyed the three cages with the three gremlins, all now quiet, their big eyes gazing at the pulsating hole.

"No, nope. I know that look." Zee stomped over to me. "Adam Vex, this was the plan. Gremlins go in the cages, then in that hole." He pointed at the portal. "Don't let their cute faces get to you. They're vicious little bastards." He winced, folded his arms, and looked away. "Nope, stop. My mind is made up, my heart is ice. I am immovable, and not even your sad eyes can—" He peeked back. "Oh for fuck's sake." His wings drooped, and he sighed.

"I don't think this is right."

"Gah!" He flung his hands at the cages. "Then what the fuck do we with these ones? Dress them in dolls clothes and make them dance?"

That was weirdly specific. "I can't put them in the portal when we don't know where it goes."

Zee dropped his head back and blinked at the ceiling. "You butchered three demons but you can't dispatch a few gremlins?"

"That was different. Those demons were mean."

"Gremlins are pretty fucking mean, especially when you're taking a shower and don't notice there's one in there with you." He shivered. "You don't wanna fucking know where they attack when they can't go for your face."

"But Zee, gremlins are stuck here like the rest of us. This hotel is supposed to be a sanctuary for all. We can't pick and choose who that includes."

"So they're fucking guests now?"

"I applaud your morals, Adam." Victor calmly interrupted. "However, gremlins do not have the means to pay, and the hotel is not a charity. Their numbers are impacting the ability to run this hotel profitably. If nothing is done, there will not be a hotel for them to stay at."

He was right. They were both right. I flung my hands up. "I don't know, okay? I don't know what to do with them. I don't know how to keep everyone safe. I don't even know why I have to do this, or why I'm here, in this crazy place. I don't really know why the wards keep getting bigger when we have sex, and I don't know why Gideon Cain wants to kill us, other than the fact he's clearly a horrible person, and I don't know how to stop Daisy. I don't know any of it." I paused enough to breathe, and added, "But I do know, I can't force the gremlins out. The same as I won't force you out Victor, or you Zee. I know that ."

The pair of them fell silent until Victor said, "I'm uncertain whether I'm grateful for the affirmation or slightly alarmed to be compared to a gremlin."

Zee pursed his lips in a pout. "We need mac and cheese."

I was kinda hungry. I smiled at Zee and he smiled back, always knowing the absolute best thing to say. "Maybe after mac and cheese we should try and talk to the gremlins?" I suggested. "Has anyone ever tried talking to them?"

Zee huffed, clamped his wings closed, folded his arms, and sulked. "If this is coming back to Little Jimmy, then you are talking to it. No way am I going near that tiny fluttering psycho."

"McDongle said pixies organize gremlins, so maybe Little Jimmy can help?" It was a long shot, but we were fast running out of ideas.

"Don't come crying to Uncle Zee when Little Jimmy stabs your eyes out."

I'd make sure there were no sharp things nearby when I did speak with Little Jimmy. If we could find him.

I caught Victor's smile as he popped the lid on his gremlin trap. The gremlin we'd caught leaped free and darted into the bathroom to find an exit.

"Your heart is always in the right place, Adam," Victor said softly.

My heart was the whole reason we were in this mess. "If it doesn't work, we'll think of something. We always do."

The portal hummed and hovered and pulsed. Maybe the gremlins had all left because of that . "Does anyone know how to get rid of that thing?"

"I'll look into it," Victor said.

"Yes. Better yet, you should go into it, Fancy Pants," Zee suggested. "Right now. I'll watch."

"Only fools enter a portal for which the exit is unknown."

Zee hair-flicked and bent over to free his gremlin. "Right. Pfft. Fools do that."

"Did he enter it?" Victor asked me.

"Yeah."

Victor's lips twitched in soft amusement. He gazed at Zee, while Zee fussed with the gremlin cage and huffed about freeing gremlins and how he definitely had not entered a dangerous portal.

Victor's single look said more than words could. It said we were all going to be okay.