“I liked you better when you were sneaking around and playing pranks,” she said. “I’d think a demon would find a better host to possess. That one looks like it has worms.”
Rochester’s face narrowed and his teeth grew sharp again, his nose twitching in rage.
Oops. Maybe I better get a clue from Cody about how to handle this before I get my face bitten off.
“So, Mr. Future of Horror, what’s the next move?” she asked.
Cody raised himself to a sitting position, still rubbing his neck. “Well, a demon only has power over you if you invite it in,” he said.
“You invited us just by coming here,” Rochester said. “So bow down.”
Kendra’s feet flew out from under her and she banged hard on her knees, kneeling beside Cody as if the two of them were repentant sinners seeking forgiveness. Kendra had not been raised in the church, but she was offended both by this mockery of religion and the ease with which she could be manipulated. She tried to rise, but a great weight had settled on her.
“So,” Kendra asked Cody. “What does the book say about how to handle this?”
“There’s no book.”
“I don’t suppose I can all of a sudden ask Jesus into my heart?” she asked Rochester, planning to do the exact opposite of whatever he said.
“Be my guest,” he replied. “Jesus and me, we’re on the same team. Working for the Man, putting in time until time’s up.”
His delivery had changed, voice older and almost weary. She glanced toward the direction of the access door, but it now seemed impossibly far away.
“Where are Bruce and Dorrie?” Kendra asked.
Rochester shrugged. “Around.”
“We already knew the hotel was active,” Cody said. “If you’re a demon, why do you hang around with all these ghosts? Are you a scaredy cat like she said? Maybe you’re afraid of the dark.”
“I’m only afraid of one thing,” Rochester said. “And if you can figure it out, I might—” he gave a rodent grin—”might—let you live.”
“There are worse things than being dead,” Cody said, leading Kendra to wonder what those things were and how he knew.
“Suppose we don’t want to play your guessing game?” Kendra said. “What if we just walk out of here and pretend you don’t exist?”
“Free your spirit and your feet will follow?” Rochester adjusted the collar of his plush jacket and thrust out the sketch pad. “I don’t think you could leave without this.”
She propelled herself forward, but it was difficult to launch from a kneeling position, and she fell into the shredded paper that served as insulation. She was reminded of a rat’s nest her dad had found in the garden shed behind their house, and how much of it had been paper nibbled from Digger’s comic-book collection. The nest had smelled of old hair and pee, and this insulation was almost as bad.
A hand latched onto her, squeezing hard enough to hurt, and she figured Rat-Face was digging his creepy little paws into her, but when she glanced up, it was Cody stooping over her. The gypsum beneath her cracked, and she was reminded of Cody’s warning: Be careful, or you’ll step straight through to the floor below.
Sounded like a good idea.
“Okay, Rochester,” she said, as Cody helped her rise. She gave her best Emily Dee leap into the air, and landed squarely on the spot where she had been lying. The gypsum splintered and bent, but didn’t collapse. She glanced at Cody, who caught on, and he jumped beside her, their combined weight too much for the ceiling material.
She just had time to hear Rochester’s squeal before she was flying through the air, weightless, seeming to hang forever, or at least long enough to grab Cody, and then she struck the wooden floor ten feet below, and all was black.
Chapter 42
“Shit,” Burton said.
The lights had blinked just as his group was settling into Room 318, then the power dimmed and went out after one final surge.
“Flashlights, everybody,” he said.
As the individual lights clicked on, throwing erratic dots of orange around the walls, Burton paged the other SSI members on his walkie-talkie. No answer.
Cody, Kendra, and The Roach out, and Digger on the ropes. Jonathan out of contact, too.
He tried the walkie-talkie again. Outside the window, the lawn was dark, the only illumination cast by the half moon stitched behind a gauze of fog. The hunters in Room 318 didn’t seem alarmed by the power outage, talking in occasional low whispers and enjoying the gloomy atmosphere.
Burton felt his way along the wall to the door. “Be right back,” he said to the group before slipping out of the room. He dreaded having to deal with the vacant-eyed Violet, but maybe the manager had turned up.
Yet another person gone AWOL…what is it with this place? Is it eating the guests?
With the lack of power, the ambient noises of the hotel—televisions, elevator, bar—had given way to almost complete silence. Those few guests not on the hunts were likely reluctant to leave their rooms. The creak of his footsteps was magnified, and only when his beam glanced against a mirror could he see more than five feet in front of him. He debated checking in at the control room, but the equipment there would be useless even if someone were manning it.
Burton turned the corner and headed for the stairwell. The woman stood there with her arms folded, and he almost bumped into her. She would have seen the flashlight approaching, but she hadn’t called out. He recognized her from one of the earlier panel discussions, where she had sat in the back and cracked her knuckles, a sour expression on her face as if she had eaten bad eggs and they had given her gas.
Her onyx pupils absorbed the flashlight beam and there was no glint reflecting from her eyes. She was a stolid statue, carved from rock by a civilization long gone, except her full lips lifted in a grin that showed most of her teeth. Her breath washed over him in a sulfuric wave.
“Power’s out,” he said, in an excuse to move past her, lowering the beam from her face.
“Power’s in,” she said in a taunting voice.
“Excuse me?” One of Digger’s rules was that every guest should be treated with respect, no matter how odd or flaky, because the paranormal community was small. The customer was always right, even the psychotic alien love child.
“I took it,” she said.
He aimed the light at her name badge. Eloise Lanier. He tried humor. “Do you mind giving it back?”
Her smile dropped. “I’m not finished with it yet.”
“Okay, Miss Lanier. Did you lose your group?”
“They’re down there.” She rolled her eyes toward the floor.
“Yeah, that’s where I’m headed. Do you have a flashlight?”
She reached out and snatched his away before he could react. “Now I do.”
She held the flashlight over her head like it was a chunk of meat and she expected him to leap for it like a dog. Her face was steeped in shadows.
“Ma’am, this is an emergency,” he said, biting back his irritation.
“More than you know.” She brought the flashlight down in an arc, crashing it on top of Burton’s skull. He grunted and staggered away, stunned by the blow, sparks of purple and electric lime jumping across the backs of his eyelids. He touched his head and felt the wetness of blood.
As he recovered, anger surged through him, joining the pain to give him a burst of energy. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Bad attitude,” she said.
He tried to place her, wondering if she were one of the unstable drama queens Digger had warned SSI about. He recalled her name from the program as one of the speakers on a panel he hadn’t attended. If she were an aspiring para-celeb, going psycho at a paranormal conference might get her some infamy and the ensuing Internet hits.
He decided to give professional tact one more chance. “I’m sorry you’re not enjoying your stay—”
The flashlight swung again but this time he was ready. His experience as a rock ‘n’ roll roadie paid off as he ducked the blow and came underneath, jabbing his fist toward her elbow. He’d been raised never to hit women, but preservation instinct overrode it and he smacked her hard enough to force her to drop the flashlight. As it hit the carpet, its batteries jostled free and the hall went utterly dark.