Chapter 13

We returnedto the hotel as dawn painted the San Francisco sky red. Zee went to his room to prepare, and Reynard did whatever Reynard does when he disappears. I switched out my clothes for my more typical, casual sweater and slacks, and sauntered down to the bar, where I was met with Tom Collins's scowl.

"It's about time you showed up," he grouched.

That didn't sound good. "I was only away for a day. What happened?"

He took a deep, foreboding breath. "The gift that keeps on giving, Sebastien, decided to make a scene in my bar." He gestured at Zee's dancing pole, now bent in half. Then he adjusted his hand to encompass our new cabinet, reduced to a pile of splinters. "I'd have shoved the shotgun up his ass if I didn't think he'd enjoy it."

Sebastien had been at the hotel? I huffed and sat on a stool. "Whiskey."

Tom fixed my drink, grumbling about how he should have been informed if I wasn't going to be around to settle managerial things. He slammed the glass of whiskey onto the bartop and folded his arms over his dapper burgundy silk vest. I couldn't tell if he was genuinely angry or if this was his default ragey mode. He claimed he didn't experience emotions, but the sharp way he'd moved when making my drink suggested he was definitely put out by being left to deal with Sebastien alone.

"You're looking very handsome this morning," I said, hoping to brighten his mood. Everyone loved a compliment, even a broken AI. And just because he was AI, it didn't mean he deserved to be ignored.

His shoulders shimmied. "Oh. Well. Thank you. Someone in this sorry excuse for an establishment should take their job seriously."

"And it is appreciated, Tom. So thank you. And I'm sorry you were left here to deal with"—I glanced at the pole—"that."

He thawed a little and shook his head in dismay. "What are you going to do about Sebastien?"

I eyed my untouched whiskey, then the bent pole and ruined cabinet. Zee loved that pole, but I suspected Reynard would be pleased the cabinet had been destroyed. "I have an idea, but it's risky."

"Sebastien bent that like a paper straw. He will kill Zodiac, Adam." Tom leaned on the bar, bringing his face inches from mine. Up close, there were tiny tells he was AI. A few flickering pixels. But those were just surface imperfections. His brown eyes burned with an intensity I wasn't sure AIs were supposed to be capable of.

The opening notes of "Hotel California" came on the jukebox, guitar strings plucking ominously. That was... timely.

Tom waited for the right musical moment, and said, like a prophet of doom, "If Sebastien kills Zodiac, this hotel and the sanctuary it provides will cease to exist."

"He won't. And it won't." A few things had become clear to me lately, but one thing in particular: I'd protect this hotel and everyone within it, with my life. Every name in the guest book was personally guaranteed a safe stay. By me.

"I can't leave this bar," Tom said, still in his unhinged AI, ominous tone. "But within these gremlin-riddled walls, I see everything. You, sir, are a fine fucking example of bottled-up emotion about to blow. The quiet ones are the most dangerous. I see how Zodiac plays to the crowd, but the only person in the room he looks for is you. Although, lately, he's begun watching Lord Reynard without the vampire knowing." Tom took another breath, and plowed on. "Speaking of Baron Victor Reynard, he spent an obscene amount of hours making a cabinet that should, at most, take sixty minutes, because he doesn't know how to process that he cares for his food and his mortal enemy. But let's get back to you, the unremarkable Adam Vex. I see how all of this is holding you together. I know desperate men. I know people who want to forget, and I help them do that with an Amnesia Ambrosia cocktail—one sip and you forget you've ordered it." I opened my mouth to suggested he maybe shouldn't sell that kind of drink, but he rushed on. "The SOS Hotel is your last stand. If Zodiac falls, so do you, so does Reynard, and so does this hotel. Including me. I don't know what your life was like prior to owning this hotel, but I know I don't want to go back into the dark place I was in before, ever again."

I swallowed, and peered into my untouched whiskey.

He saw a lot.

More than anyone else.

Normally, that would make Tom Collins a problem. I had a lot of problems. A Gideon Cain problem. A little missy, princess vampire problem. A racist detective problem. A bounty-hunting fae, federal agent problem. Not to mention the biggest problem of all. Me.

But Tom wasn't an immediate problem. Because he couldn't leave this bar, and he couldn't pass on my secrets.

Tom Collins might have been the only person this side of the veil who was beginning to know the real me. And that felt good, knowing I didn't have to pretend around him.

Tom lowered his voice. "People like Sebastien take pleasure in destroying the things others love. Give an inch, and he'll take a mile."

"It won't come to that," I told him, and picked up my drink. "If all else fails, I'll invite him here for a drink... What's it called, the other one you make? Ah, yes. A Long Walk off a Short Pier."

Tom blinked, and we were on the same page. He was right about me, it really was the quiet ones who were the most dangerous. Now he knew he was right. And I knew he knew.

He straightened, and tugged his vest down, pulling out the creases. "Good talk, Adam. You want a cocaine chaser with your breakfast?"

Oh dear. "Tom, you have to stop putting cocaine in things. There are laws about that. Where are you even getting cocaine from?"

He plucked a glass from the drying rack below the bar and began wiping it down, falling back into his programmed routines. "Cocaine? Who said I had cocaine? I'm running a respectable place here. Of course there's no class A drugs back here. That would be against the human laws I definitely abide by and have in no way circumvented."

I downed my whiskey, then wondered if he'd already put cocaine in it, and eyed the empty glass. Tom smiled. "Did you put drugs in my drink?"

"Did I put drugs in your drink?" he echoed, scoffing a dry laugh. "Those are some serious trust issues you got there."

"You literally just offered me cocaine, Tom."

"Do you want some?"

I groaned into my hands, then hopped off the stool. "If any of the human authorities come by, don't offer them drugs, alright? They really don't like that sort of thing."

"You need to work on your trust issues, and trust me more. Who held down this place while you were away? I did. Your dependable, reliable, not in any way corrupted, artificial barman."

It was like talking with Zodiac, but without the raging libido.

"I'll be out this evening, with Reynard and Zee," I said. "Please don't poison any guests while I'm gone."

Tom smiled, but it was the kind of shallow smile that meant he'd be up to mischief as soon as I turned my back. "You can trust me to serve everyone the drinks they deserve."

"That's the problem."

Tom lowered his voice, and said with the same smile, "Make that son of a bitch hurt."

We both knew we were talking about Sebastien. I nodded, and headed off to begin another day managing the SOS Hotel, hoping it wouldn't be my last.