Chapter 11

She sniffed the champagne, waiting until Kester took a sip of his before she put the glass to her lips, just in case it was poisoned. It tasted fruity and crisp, like fall apples.

“This is delicious,” she said.

“It’s a 1928 Krug. One of my favorite vintages. I keep a few bottles around for special occasions.”

“Champagne from the ’20s. This glass probably cost more than my annual wages,” she mused.

“Things have changed for you.” He stood, a champagne flute in one hand and the bottle in the other. “Shall we see the rest of the apartment?”

“There’s more?”

“There’s the second floor.” He stepped out the door.

She rose, gripping her champagne as she followed him into a large foyer with a marble staircase. He pointed to a set of double doors. “The elevator, which should satisfy your paranoid tendencies in case you need to make a fast escape.” He flicked a wall switch. Above, a chandelier sparkled with a hundred tiny lights. “The bedrooms are on the upper level.”

As she climbed the stairs with him, her shoulders tensed. Maybe magic was real, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a pervert.

She glanced at him. If he attacked her in some way, she could smash the champagne flute and stab him with the stem. “Before you try anything funny, you should know that I’m pretty good at brawling.”

He shot her a sharp look. “Charming. First, you will not beat me in a fight. Not ever. And second, I promise you there’s no need for me to force myself on unenthusiastic women when there are many willing participants to choose from.”

“Is that so?” It was the only retort she could come up with.

“Do I need to remind you again that I’m your mentor?” That cold, commanding tone had entered his voice again. Gone was the whole soothing charade he’d plied her with earlier in the dining room. Obviously, persuasion was part of his hellhound skill set.

She loosed a sigh. “You don’t need to remind me.” As she climbed up the stairs after him, she ran her fingers over the brass railing. “This is all part of the hotel?”

“The upper floors of the Plaza are all private residences. A former hellhound purchased this apartment in the twenties for a pittance. The Plaza tried to reacquire it in the thirties but… well, let’s say we have our ways of getting what we want.”

They reached the landing at the top of the stairs, and a hallway stretched out in either direction. Kester crossed to a door, pushing it open and flicking on a light. “Bedroom one. The greenery room.”

Ursula peered inside. This bedroom appeared to double as a botanical conservatory. A wrought-iron scaffold supported glass panes, enclosing half the room. A small day bed stood in one corner. It was pretty in a way, but rotting orchids and cacti lined shelves, and a smell of decay filled the air.

She stepped out. “Interesting. Maybe I’ll get into gardening.”

“I’ll have the cleaning staff come through in the morning,” said Kester, closing the door.

He continued down the hall, gesturing through a doorway. She stuck her head into a grey-tiled bathroom. An enormous claw-foot bathtub stood in the center, with a shower in the corner. Beautiful. She’d never had a proper shower before, just grimy tubs with handheld sprayers that emitted a sad trickle of water. “I’m really going to enjoy that shower.”

“I thought you’d like it. Come. There’s more.” Kester led her to another room. When he entered, he muttered in that strange language, and candles blazed all over the room. Shadows danced over high, arched ceilings and stained glass windows. In the center stood a four-poster bed with a black canopy. Shelves lined the walls, filled with jars of potions and animal skulls. “The master bedroom.”

Stunning—but creepy. Not unlike my new mentor. “Great. Maybe I’ll sleep here.”

There was no way she was sleeping with the skulls. She’d sleep in the living room.

“There’s one more.” He walked to the end of the hall.

She stepped inside. This room was smaller than the others. A twin bed with a cream coverlet nestled below a window, and an antique dresser stood in the corner. Kester muttered the spell again and the lantern that sat on the bedside table flickered to life, bathing the room in warm light. On the ceiling, someone had painted the zodiac—gold on midnight blue. It was perfect. It just needed a few finishing touches, maybe a bit of color, to make her feel at home.

“I love it.” If Ursula had brought a bag she would have tossed it on the bed to claim it as her own.

“There’s one more thing you need to know.” He stepped back into the hall, pointing to a door across from hers. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before.

Made of rough oak studded with iron nails, it could only be described one way: creepy as hell. It looked like something you’d find in Vlad the Impaler’s castle. A pale yellow glow surrounded its frame, the exact color of the shackles Kester had clamped on her wrist in the Lotus.

“In case the spikes didn’t make it clear enough, that room is off limits.”

Suddenly chilled, she hugged herself. “What’s in it?”

Kester glared at her. “You don’t need to know that. And now, I’ll leave you to that shower. Alone, of course.”

He turned to leave, but she touched his arm. “Kester. What happened to the last hellhound? What did he move on to?”

He stared her down. “That’s not for you to worry about, Ursula. You have enough to take care of. Get some sleep.”

His response didn’t do anything to put her mind at ease.

Kester let himself out,leaving Ursula to rifle through the drawers and cupboards on her own. After a glorious hot shower to wash off the remnants of the Muppet’s stale beer, she picked through the apartment again, one room at a time.

In the kitchen, she discovered a chrome espresso machine and coffee grinder stowed in a closet. She dusted them off, moving them to one of the marble countertops. I love coffee. I belong in America. Would it be strange to pay for coffee beans with gold ingots?

Returning to the library, she read the spines of every book in the room. There were first editions of all the modern classics: Melville, Poe, Dickens, and Bront?. She even found older works by Chaucer, Dante, and Shakespeare—many of them written on parchment and beautifully illustrated in the margins.

Strangely, a lower shelf seemed to be protected by the same golden glow that blazed from the door upstairs. When she reached for the books, her hand was repelled by an invisible force. So of course, those were the ones she most wanted to read. Gold lettering looped up their faded blue and maroon spines: Fasciculus Chemicus, Iconologia, and Picatrix. She had no clue what any of that meant, just a strong desire to do whatever she wasn’t supposed to do.

After giving up on the enchanted books, she rose to take one last peek in the armory. When she stepped into the room, she caught a glimpse of the clock mounted above the mirror. It was past midnight. That was, what, five or six a.m. in the UK? She really needed to get some rest.

She trudged up the stairs to her new bedroom and crawled under the coverlet. As she lay in the darkness, she closed her eyes, trying to calm the thoughts blazing through her mind.

Muppet’s singed shirt, Kester’s fiery eyes and clawed fingers, the moor fiend’s leering grin.

She’d never fall asleep with these thoughts whirling in her skull. She imagined one of her favorite places: a ruined church near the tower of London, its crumbling stone walls covered in ivy. But even with that serene image in her mind, Kester’s words rang in her head: You’re a demon.

The concept was horrifying. She’d always known she was different, but… a demon? A mortal one, no less. You’d think that one of the benefits of demonhood would be immortality, but no. Not only was she an abomination and a bringer of death, but she had to die, just like everyone else. She rubbed her white stone between her fingers, but it wasn’t giving her comfort tonight.

She pulled her bedsheets tighter. She hadn’t asked for any of this. At least, she didn’t think she had. As long as she could remember, the strange scar had marred her shoulder. Who knew how she got it? She was a Mystery Girl all right—a Mystery Girl who’d made a terrible decision she couldn’t even remember. And now she was stuck in a foreign country, permanently cut off from her best friend.

That was the thing that really bothered her. More than anything, she wanted to find a way to phone Katie, just to hear a friendly voice again. But she really didn’t want to find out what Kester’s threat meant. And what could she even say to Katie without sounding like a complete and utter lunatic? Heat rose in her chest, and sweat beaded on her face.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at the blue ceiling flecked with gold stars. There was something oddly comforting about the night sky. At times like this, when the world seemed to suffocate her, she felt like she wanted to throw herself into the freezing night air, to drift along in the wind, riding a night storm…

Basically, she was a lunatic, trapped with her own thoughts.

And as if they weren’t enough to keep her awake, a glowing, spiked door lurked just outside her room.

She threw off her covers and rose from the bed. Shivering, she returned downstairs and snatched a dagger to slip beneath her pillow.