This was where it all started.
The spotlight swept by again, the sirens blaring nearby, and the carpet was warm under her feet, the falling water mixed with smoke and steam. The room was fog, and she could be left here and lost forever, to wander the seams between living and dead, or maybe this was the dream an infant had suffered in the womb of Beth Wilson on the way to being stillborn.
Maybe she was already dead.
And had never been.
A memoir writ in invisible ink.
“You’re the life he never had,” Ann said, but it wasn’t Ann. It was Margaret Percival. It had always been Margaret Percival.
“Kendra!”
Dad was just outside the door, banging, kicking, screaming her name.
Her name.
Kendra Wilson.
She had been born after all, and she was alive.
“You took his life,” Margaret said.
“I didn’t take anything that wasn’t mine,” Kendra said, water streaming down her face, eyes stinging, the tears flushing away as fast as they escaped.
She flung her arms out in the fog, knowing Margaret could see her, because Margaret saw everything in the hotel. Margaret was the hotel.
“Because you still have this,” Kendra said, shouting over the hissing of the water and the pounding on the door and the creaking of imploding lumber. “All yours.”
She lunged toward the door, bracing for the collision, wondering if Margaret would be as yielding and suffocating as damp cotton, as sharp and brittle as an iceberg, as splintery and hot as a burning hotel. No matter the material, or the immaterial, Emily Dee was kicking ass and taking names and writing it all down in a little book.
The room was suffused with a sudden glow, as if a thousand candles had been struck to life, the water drops sparkling like amber and rubies. Ann Vandooren’s face emerged from the exotic mist and she swiped out with a hooked stack of talons, going for Kendra’s face. But someone—something—caught Ann’s wrist, twisting it behind her back, yelling at Kendra to run.
Chapter 50
Wayne fell into Room 318 when the door flew open.
Spitting, coughing, crawling, he forced himself forward, though his body was one big bruise and numbness enervated his legs. The climb up the dark, smoke-filled service stairs had sapped him.
And he’d almost given up hope when he found the door stuck tight, as solid as the wall, and in a burst of frustration and fear, he’d slammed himself against it, calling Kendra’s name. But then—if he believed in miracles, he’d give it that name, though other names were possible—the room allowed entry.
Water cascaded down, stirring the air enough for him to fill half his lungs, not enough to carry a shout but enough to make the next lunge forward.
The door...allowed...entry.
The room had let him in. Not because the lock yielded or the stubborn hinges gave way or structural damage had loosened it from the jamb.
No, the door had said, “Come in, Digger. We’ve been waiting.”
The same room where he and Beth had booked a second honeymoon, making serious love and silly promises, and 17 years on, he was right where he’d never wanted to be again. In many ways, he was deader than Beth would ever be.
Wayne squinted into the steam. He made out two shapes near the window, silhouetted against the backlit window. One was large and hulking, with wild, stringy hair, towering over the smaller figure, who was crouched in a stance of self-defense. Her Emily Dee act.
The White Horse had his daughter.
He roared in rage, throat raw, and launched himself from the floor. He didn’t understand the forces here, and all the tiny paths that had led back to Room 318, but he understood that Beth had trusted him with this job.
It was time for Digger to shovel shit.
He caught the woman’s arm as she clawed at Kendra’s face. She turned and snarled at him like a feral animal. He barely recognized her—Ann Vandooren, the hoax artist—and the fierce glow in her eyes reminded him of the pulsing furnace in the basement.
“G-get out.” His words came in a spasm of coughs. “Run.”
“Dad,” Kendra said, sounding scared, but he couldn’t reassure her because he was scared, too. The strobing emergency lights outside threw a red wash across the walls, making a chaotic kaleidoscope of the room.
Ann shrugged free from his grip and thrust her hand toward his neck, nails slicing flesh as fingers locked around his throat. Kendra gave a flying side kick, but her sneaker bounced off the woman as if she were made of rubber-coated steel.
Wayne glanced around for something to use as a club. The bedside lamp had a heavy base, but it was out of reach. Ann’s fingers clung with unnatural strength, and the drumming water blurred his vision.
The floor shuddered, signaling a portion of the building had collapsed. The eastern wing had been the most engulfed, and Wayne figured the flames were chewing their way down the hall. The firelight pulsed in syncopation with the emergency lights. If Kendra didn’t escape soon—
She leaped onto Ann’s back, wrapping her arms as if going for a piggyback ride. The attack was just enough to throw Ann off balance, and they all fell onto the soggy king-size bed. As Ann writhed on top him, pinning him to the bedspread, Wayne couldn’t help but think of Beth and how their long-ago wrestling had created Kendra.
Ann raked her fingers down his chest, ripping his skin and shirt collar, but at least he could now suck enough air to scream.
He wallowed for traction against the sodden cloth. Ann had turned her attention to Kendra, but her face was close to his, sulfuric wind oozing from her mouth. He drove his forehead into her nose and she shook, flinging water from her hair.
Blood gushed from her face. Whatever she was, she wasn’t invincible. Her flesh was still human.
Wayne didn’t know if there was anything left of Ann inside the hissing, flailing form, but instinct compelled him to hurt her in any way he could.
But before he could punch her, the ceiling fell, chunks of gypsum pounding his face and delivering him to darkness.
Chapter 51
Kendra bounced on the bed—stay and play—and grabbed the sprinkler pipe, planning to swing until she could kick the crazy woman off of Dad. But the pipe came loose from the ceiling, yanking jagged sheets of gypsum with it.
Kendra fell, snapping off one of the bed’s posters, then sprawled backward with a spluff, her fall softened by the wet blankets.
Ann hovered over her, and in the strange flickering light, her eyes were bright as embers, pulsing with the rage of the world.
“You can’t have it,” Ann said, grabbing Kendra’s hair with one hand. The woman grinned, and her teeth were impossibly long, far too big for her mouth. She was no longer a woman, really. More like a badly drawn creature from the imagination of some sicko cryptozoologist.
Rat face.
Dad moaned from somewhere miles away in steamy jungle night.
Kendra rolled until she was halfway off the bed, but there was no floor below, only a deep, inky blackness that looked like it would suck everything down into the dead belly of the world. The walls were still there, the bulky outlines of furniture still revealed by the emergency lights outside, but the abyss below was big enough to swallow it all. The water drops fell on and on until their reddish silver glints vanished forever.