Chapter 12

One scream became many.Reynard flew through the door and was gone in a blink, too fast for me to track, but it wasn’t hard to figure out where he’d gone since there was a stream of people surging from the bar.

This was going to be a PR nightmare, but I’d worry about the fallout later. For now, I needed to get inside the bar.

Buffeted by fleeing guests, I fought my way inside, and caught the tail end of Reynard leaping off a table and landing a punch into the enormous shadowbeast’s middle, sending it flying backward. It splashed against a wall, and poofed into a cloud of static-dust smoke. Vanishing inside the shadows once more.

“Adam!” Reynard bellowed.

I dashed to his side as he whirled, trying to find me in the chaos. “I’m here—what do I do?”

“When it attacks again, it will leave a tear in the shadows. Go through and find Zodiac. He’s nearby, in its realm. I’m sure of it. I’ll keep it busy here. You have thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds?! What?! Wait?—”

Shadows pooled from every corner of the bar, rose up in a wave, and crashed down on Reynard, washing him and half the tables across the floor. Then, between him and me the air crackled, and the shadowbeast emerged, born from a split in the darkness.

I ran at the tear and plunged through. Whatever in-between space I ended up in, its air choked like thick smoke, and pushed in from all around, trying to expel me. Blinking through the thick gloom, I was able to make out the SOS Hotel bar, but here it was empty. Just walls, the ceiling, the floor, and no color or life—an absence of living.

If this was the same hotel, just... dead, then where could Zee be?

My dream . . . The attic!

There wasn’t time?—

I ran, pushing through the thick air. “Zee?” The shadows swallowed my voice as soon as it left my lips. The silence clung to my skin like oil, sapping my will, trying to slow me down and force me out. This place was horrible—like a purgatory, a prison of nothing—and the very worst place a demon who thrived on life could be trapped and forgotten.

I hammered up the narrow stairs, stumbled into the attic space, and there he was, curled into a ball, his wings tucked around him, his tail limp. “Zee!” I skidded to my knees and peeled a wing back. His face was snow white, his lips grey. Dull, unseeing eyes peered through me. Not blinking, not seeing. I was too late. “Zee, no.” I cupped his face. He couldn’t be dead. Not Zee. It wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve this.

“Hurry!” Reynard’s voice boomed from all around.

I didn’t know what to do. Drag his body back to the bar? How? “Zee...” My fingers fluttered to his neck, checking for a pulse, fearing there wouldn’t be one. “Come on, I need you to be okay. I can’t do this without you.” There, the smallest of beats, like a tiny butterfly, its wings beating under my touch, his life so fragile a thing. He wasn’t dead. Not yet. But how was I going to get him out? Wings and horns, he was half as tall as me again. I couldn’t get him down the narrow stairs, and I didn’t know how to make a tear in the shadows.

“Zee, I need you to wake up. We have to get to the?—”

A blow knocked me clean off my feet. I slammed into the underside of the roof trusses, then dropped to the floor with a mouth full of dust. I turned my head, spluttered, and the shadowbeast loomed. Bigger than I’d ever seen it. It pulled the fabric of the world into it, bolstering itself with every step toward me, filling the attic space.

I staggered to my feet and jerked my chin. “You don’t want to do this.” Zee was still slumped behind it. I could save him, I had to save him. But the beast was huge, and getting bigger by the second. “This isn’t your fight. Gideon controls you, I know.” I thrust out a hand, as though to hold the creature back. “It’s his ring, you don’t have a choice, do you? But I can help. I can free you.” I wasn’t sure if that was possible, but it sounded good.

Unfortunately, the shadowbeast either wasn’t listening or didn’t care. It swept a huge arm through the air, knocking me clean off my feet and face first into the floorboards. I scurried around, momentum carrying me onto my feet, then righted myself again and swept a hand through my hair, freeing bits of splintered wood. “Alright, I see we have a difference of opinion happening here. But you see that demon over there? He’s my friend, and I need to take him home. If you get in my way, I will stop you.”

The shadowbeast didn’t really have a face, just a murky outline, but I sensed its unkind smile.

“You don’t think I can stop you?” Granted, it wasn’t looking good. Reynard hadn’t been able to stop it, and he had a few thousand years of battle prowess over me. “We can do this dance all night, but I’m not leaving without my friend.”

The beast chortled—at least, I figured that’s what the odd bubbling noise was that came from its insides.

“What if... we make a deal?” Admittedly, I was grasping at straws now. But deals were the favorite currency of the Lost Ones, so maybe shadowbeasts had hopes and desires too? “You let Zee and me go, and stop attacking us, and you can have this attic? How does that sound? The wards will protect you. We can board up the window, keep out the sunlight. Your very own space?—”

“Wardsbroken.” Its voice made a tearing, metal sound.

“No, well yes, at the moment, to stop you. But they’ll be working again any second now, and then, not even Gideon’s ring can control you, if you become a guest at my hotel. Your name in the book. Perfectly safe.”

“Guest?” it ground out.

“You’ll be safe from Gideon.” I stepped closer, having to lift my head to where I assumed its face was. I figured the ring wasn’t a mutual agreement, more of a slave-master arrangement that sorcerers were notorious for. “I can’t imagine you want to be at his beck and call forever?”

“Yousorcerer?”

“No, I’m not... I don’t... I don’t want to own you. I’m offering you freedom, sort of, at least under my roof.”

“Freedom?”

How long had it been under Gideon’s control? Days, weeks, years? “Yes. Incorporeal shadow-beings deserve to feel safe too. A home?” Perhaps all it wanted was a chance to be the master of its own destiny? Wasn’t that what we all wanted? It did seem to be considering it, since it wasn’t advancing, but I needed it to hurry up. The wards would be back in place at any moment, if they weren’t already, and Zee wasn’t looking good.

“Home?”

“Home, yes.” I offered my hand. “Agreed?”

It extended a smoky, writhing tendril and wrapped it around my arm. “Shadowyes.”

“Shadow? That’s your name?” Not entirely original, but I was in no position to judge. “Great.” I let go of its wispy limb, and resisted the urge to wipe my hand on my thigh. “Now, can you help me get my friend back to our realm, where we belong? Maybe the hotel bar?—”

A wave of shadows swooped in, picking me up. A brief moment of weightlessness turned me around, and then in a blink I was back in the bar, with dark sparks raining off my clothes and fizzing in my hair. Zee sat slumped against the stage, still unresponsive. And there was Gideon, casually seated at the bar, sipping his drink as though nothing untoward had happened and Tom Collins didn’t have the bar shotgun shouldered and aimed an inch from his face.

Reynard loomed by the jukebox, his silvery eyes ablaze, disheveled and breathless from his battling the shadowbeast, but also poised and ready to attack.

Everyone else had fled, which was probably for the best.

I knelt by Zee and checked his pulse again. Still there, still weak. “Reynard, can you take Zee to his room?”

“I won’t leave you with the sorcerer,” he growled, as though he was two seconds away from breaking bones.

“The wards are back in place. Gideon can’t do anything, especially now he’s lost his shadowbeast.” As I approached Gideon, I saw how he caressed the ring on his finger, probably wondering why Shadow wasn’t responding to his call, although there was no sign of concern on his smug face. He continued to sip his drink as though all was well. Not even having the business end of a shotgun an inch from his face could dent his smile.

Reynard rolled his shoulders and sighed, standing down, then scooped Zee into his arms, wings and tail trailing either side, and headed for the bar doors.

“I’ll be right there.”

“You had better be,” Reynard said.

I waited until Reynard had left, then took up the stool beside Gideon. “You can lower the gun, Tom.”

Tom did as I suggested, then took himself to the far end of the bar to aggressively wipe down some glasses.

“Very good, Adam,” Gideon said, staring at the racks of bottles, studiously avoiding meeting my eye. “How did you kill it?”

“Oh, Shadow? It’s not dead. It just lives here now, with me.”

He turned his head, raked his glare over me, reading me anew, then chortled. “Of course it does.” He threw back the remains of his drink and tossed a few bucks onto the bar. “This changes nothing. This hotel will still be mine, and I will take great pleasure in reducing it and you to dust.”

“Haven’t you learned anything about me in all this, Cain?”

“I know you’re a scared, lost little man, who isn’t really a man at all. I know you’re the most dangerous thing in this hotel, and I know you’ll get them all killed. It’s what you’re good at, Adam Vex.”

I nodded Tom over, and watched him pour my usual. “You missed the most important part.”

“Which is?”

I thanked Tom by tipping my glass and took a sip of warming whiskey, then turned to face Gideon. “I’m alive. My enemies are not.”

“Not all of them.”

“Clearly.”

We locked glares, our mutual understanding clear. Then Gideon smiled and headed for the door. “Good luck recovering from this PR disaster.”

I let him leave, waited a few minutes to be sure he wasn’t about to turn around, then slumped against the bar.

“Asshole,” Tom said, clearing Gideon’s glass away. “He left his ring.” He held Gideon’s ring between his finger and thumb. “Throw it out?”

“No, hold on to it.” I wasn’t sure what the ring meant, perhaps only that I’d won this round, or that he’d be back to get it. I had to go to Zee, but Gideon had been right about one thing. I was scared. He might be home, but he wasn’t safe yet, and it was because of me that he’d been hurt. I should have looked out for him, should have done more.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out the page from the Wilson’s Guide.

The Prophecy of the Lost Ones.

In the shadows of uncertainty, amidst the whispers of despair,

A heart shall rise, a beacon bright, with compassion beyond compare.

Forged in trials, tempered in tears, it shall beat with love’s pure flame,

Guiding Lost Ones through darkest nights, where hope seems but a distant name.

I didn’t need to read any more. I knew every line, every word, as though they were branded onto my soul. “You have a lighter?” I asked Tom.

He dug into his pocket, and handed me a rainbow colored Zippo. I downed my whiskey, poked the Wilson’s Guide page into the glass, and lit its edges on fire. The flames devoured it in seconds.

“Not a fan of Wilson’s work?” Tom asked.

“Something like that. If anyone asks after me, I’m indisposed.” I hopped off the stool and sauntered toward the exit.

“Adam?”

I stopped, thrust my hands into my pockets, and turned. Tom smiled an honest smile.

“You did a good thing. It won’t go unnoticed by those who care.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”