Hex Appeal (43 page)

The number painted on the door at this landing was five. He turned around, descended a flight, looked at the door—which also read five. And the one below it. Climbing back up, he returned to where he’d stopped. Five again, or rather, still. Five and five and five. Somewhere between this floor and the last, his journey had become a loop. Which meant he was in trouble, and so was Julie.

There were still doorways, which meant there was still a way out.

Five was one of the mystic numbers—well, any number could be mystic to the right person under the right circumstances. Go to the casino and ask people what their lucky numbers were, and every number, up to a hundred and often beyond, would be represented. But five—it was a prime number, some cultures counted five elements, a pentagram had five points. It was the number of limbs to the human body, if you counted the head. A number of power, of binding.

What kind of power did it take to bend a stairwell, Escher-like, upon itself? This magician, who’d orchestrated all manner of tricks and traps, was drawing on an impressive source of it. And that’s why the culprit hadn’t fled—he’d built up a base of power here in the hotel, in order to initiate his scheme. He was counting on that power to protect him now.

When turning off a light without a switch, unplugging the lamp made so much more sense than breaking the lightbulb. Grant needed to find this magician.

He pocketed his watch and drew out a few tools he had brought with him: a white candle, a yard of red thread, and a book of matches.

*   *   *

Julie paced in front of the doorway. She thought it was the first one, the original one that she and Grant had come through, but she couldn’t be entirely sure. She’d gotten turned around.

How long before Grant noticed she was missing? What were the rules of hiking in the wilderness? Stay still, call for help, until someone finds you. She took out her phone again and shook it, as if that kind of desperate, sympathetic magic would work. It didn’t. Still dead. She’d be trapped here forever. She couldn’t even call 911 to come and rescue her. Her own fault, for getting involved in a mess she didn’t know anything about. She should never have followed Grant.

No, that hadn’t been a mistake. Her mistake had been panicking and running off half-cocked. This—none of this could be real. It went against all the laws of physics. So if it wasn’t real, what was it? An illusion. Maybe she couldn’t trust her eyes after all, at least not all the time.

She closed her eyes. Now she didn’t see anything. The TV had fallen silent. This smelled like a hotel hallway—lint, carpet cleaner. A place devoid of character. She stood before a door, and when she opened it, she’d step through to a concrete stairwell, where she’d walk straight down, back to the lobby and the casino, back to work, and she wouldn’t ask any more questions about magic.

Reaching out, she flailed a bit before finding the doorknob. Her hand closed on it, and turned. She pushed it opened and stepped through.

And felt concrete beneath her feet.

She opened her eyes, and was in the stairwell, standing right in front of Odysseus Grant. On the floor between them sat a votive candle and a length of red thread tied in a complicated pattern of knots. Grant held a match in one hand and the book it came from in the other, ready to light.

“How did you do that?” he asked, seeming genuinely startled. His wide eyes and suspicious frown were a little unnerving.

She glanced over her shoulder and back at him. “I closed my eyes. I figured none of it was real—so I just didn’t look.”

His expression softened into a smile. “Well done.” He crouched and quickly gathered up the items, shoving thread, candle, and matches into his pockets. “He’s protecting himself with a field of illusion. He must be right here—he must have been here the whole time.” He nodded past her to the hallway.

“How do you know?”

“Fifth floor. It should have been obvious,” he said.

“Obvious?” she said, nearly laughing. “Really?”

“Well, partially obvious.”

Which sounded like “sort of pregnant” to her. Before she could prod further, he urged her back into the hallway and let the door shut. It sounded a little like a death knell.

“Now, we just have to figure out what room he’s in. Is there a room 555 here?”

“On the other end, I think.”

“Excellent. He’s blown his cover.” Grant set off with long strides. Julie scurried to keep up.

At room 555, Grant tried his universal keycard, slipping it in and out of the slot. It didn’t work. “This’ll take a little more effort, I think. No matter.” He waved a hand over the keycard and tried again. And again. It still didn’t work.

A growl drew Julie’s attention to the other end of the hallway, back the way they’d come.

A creature huddled there, staring with eyes that glowed like hot iron. At first, she thought it was a dog. But it wasn’t. The thing was slate gray, hairless, with a stout head as big as its chest and no neck to speak of. Skin drooped in folds around its shoulders and limbs, and knobby growths covering its back gave it an armored look. Her mind went through a catalog of four-legged predators, searching for possibilities: hyena, lion, bear, badger on steroids, dragon.

Dragon?

The lips under its hooked bill seemed to curl in a smile.

She could barely squeak, “Odysseus?”

He glanced up from his work to where she pointed. Then he paused and took a longer look.

“It’s a good sign,” Grant said.

“How is that a good sign?” she hissed.

“A guardian like that means we’ve found him.”

That she couldn’t argue his logic didn’t mean he wasn’t still crazy.

“Can you distract it?” he said. “I’m almost through.”

“Distract it? How on Earth—”

“This magician works with illusions. That thing is there to frighten us off. But mostly likely it’s not even real. If you distract it, it’ll vanish.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“I imagine so.”

He didn’t sound as confident as she’d have liked.

She tried to picture the thing just vanishing. It looked solid enough—it filled most of the hallway. It must have been six feet tall, crouching.

“And you’re absolutely sure it’s not real.” She reminded herself about the hallways, the room service cart. All she had to do was close her eyes.

“I’m reasonably sure.”

“That’s not absolutely.”

“Julie, trust me.” He was bent over the lock again, intent on his work.

The beast wasn’t real. All right. She just had to keep telling herself that. Against her better judgment, Julie stepped toward the creature.

“Here, kitty kitty—” Okay, that was stupid. “Um, hey! Over here!” She waved her hands over her head.

The beast’s red eyes narrowed; its muscles bunched.

“Remember, it’s an illusion. Don’t believe it.”

The thing hunched and dug in claws in preparation of a charge. The carpet shredded in curling fibers under its efforts.
That
sure looked real.

“I—I don’t think it’s an illusion. It’s
drooling.
”

“Julie, stand your ground.”

The monster launched, galloping toward her, limbs pumping, muscles trembling under horny skin. The floor shook under its pounding steps. What did the magician expect would happen? Was the creature supposed to pass through her like mist?

Julie closed her eyes and braced.

A weight like a runaway truck crashed into her, and she flew back and hit the floor, head cracking, breath gusting from her lungs. The great, slavering beast stood on her, kneading her uniform vest with questing claws. Its mouth opened wide, baring yellowing fangs as it hissed a breath that smelled like carrion. Somehow, she’d gotten her arms in front of her and held it off, barely. Her hands sank into the soft, gray flesh of its chest. Its chunky head strained forward. She punched at it, dug her fingernails into it, trying to find some sensitive spot that might at least make it hesitate. She scrabbled for its eyes, but it turned its head away, and its claws ripped into her vest.

She screamed.

Thunder cracked, and the creature leaped away from her, yelping. A second boom sounded, this time accompanied by a flash of light. Less like a lightning strike and more like some kind of explosion in reverse. She covered her head and curled up against the chaos of it. The air smelled of sulfur.

She waited a long time for the silence to settle, not convinced that calm had returned to the hallway. Her chest and shoulders were sore, bruised. She had to work to draw breath into complaining lungs. Finally, though, she could uncurl from the floor and look around.

A dark stain the size of a sedan streaked away from her across the carpet and walls, like soot and ashes from an old fireplace. The edges of it gave off thin fingers of smoke. Housekeeping was going to love this. The scent of burned meat seared into her nose.

Grant stood nearby, hands lifted in a gesture of having just thrown something. Grenade, maybe? Some arcane whatsit? It hardly mattered.

She closed her eyes, hoping once again that it was all an illusion and that it would go away. But she could smell charred flesh, a rotten taste in the back of her throat.

From nearby, Grant asked, “Are you all right?”

Leaning toward the wall, she threw up.

“Julie—”

“You said it was an illusion.”

“I had every—”

“I trusted you!” Her gut heaved again. Hugging herself, she slumped against the wall and waited for the world to stop spinning.

He stood calmly, expressionless, like this sort of thing happened to him every day. Maybe it did.

She could believe her eyes. Maybe that was why she didn’t dare open them again. Then it would all be real.

“Julie,” he said again, his voice far too calm. She wanted to shake him.

“You were right,” she said, her voice scratching past her raw throat and disbelief. “I should have stayed behind.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

When she looked up, the burned stain streaking across the hall and the puddle of vomit in front of her were still there, all too real. Grant appeared serene. Unmoved.

“Really?”

“You have a gift for seeing past the obvious. You were the kid who always figured out the magic tricks, weren’t you?”

She had to smile. For every rabbit pulled out of a hat, there was a table with a trapdoor nearby. You just had to know where to look.

“You
are
all right?” he asked, and she could believe that he was really concerned.

She had to think about it. The alternatives were going crazy or muddling through. She didn’t have time for the going-crazy part. “I will be.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said, reaching out to help her up. “I really wasn’t expecting that.”

She took his hand and lurched to her feet. “You do the distracting next time.” She didn’t like the way her voice was shaking. If she thought about it too much, she’d run, screaming. If Grant could stand his ground, she could, too. She was determined.

“I was so sure it was an illusion. The players at your table—they had to have been illusions.”

“The guy from yesterday was sweating.”

“Very good illusions, mind you. Nevertheless—”

She pointed at the soot stain. “That’s not an illusion. Those players weren’t illusions. Now, maybe they weren’t what they looked like, but they were
something.
”

His brow creased, making him look worried for the first time this whole escapade. “I have a bad feeling.”

He turned back to the door he’d been working on, reaching into both pockets for items. She swore he’d already pulled more out of those pockets than could possibly fit. Instead of more lockpicks or keycards or some fancy gizmo to fool the lock into opening, he held a string of four or five firecrackers. He tore a couple off the string, flattened them, and jammed them into the lock on the door.

Her eyes widened. “You can’t—”

“Maybe the direct approach this time?” He flicked his hand, and the previously unseen match in his fingers flared to life. He lowered the flame to the fuse sticking out of the lock.

Julie scrambled back from the door. Grant merely turned his back.

The black powder popped and flared; the noise seemed loud in the hallway, and Julie could imagine the dozens of calls to the hotel front desk about the commotion. So, security would be up here in a few minutes, and one way or another it would all be over. She’d lose her job, at the very least. She’d probably end up in jail. But she’d lost her chance to back out of this. Only thing to do was keep going.

Grant eased open the door. She crept up behind him, and they entered the room.

This was one of the hotel’s party suites—two bedrooms connected to a central living room that included a table, sofa, entertainment center, and wet bar. The furniture had all been pushed to the edges of the room, and the curtains were all drawn. Light came from the glow of a few dozen red pillar candles that had been lit throughout the room. Hundreds of dull shadows seemed to flicker in the corners. The smoke alarms had to have been disabled.

The place stank of burned vegetable matter, so many different flavors to it, Julie couldn’t pick out individual components. It might have been some kind of earthy incense.

A pattern had been drawn onto the floor in luminescent paint. A circle arced around a pentagram and dozens of symbols, Greek letters, zodiac signs, others that she didn’t recognize. It obviously meant something; she couldn’t guess what. Housekeeping was
really
not going to like this.

Two figures stood within the circle: a man, rather short and very thin, wearing a T-shirt and jeans; the other, a hulking, red-skinned being, thick with muscles. It had a snout like an eagle’s bill, sharp, reptilian eyes, and wings—sweeping, leathery—bat wings spread behind it like a sail.

Julie squeaked. Both figures looked at her. The bat-thing—another dragonlike gargoyle come to life—let out a scream, like the sound of tearing steel. Folding its wings close, it bowed its head as a column of smoke enveloped it.

Grant flipped the switch by the door. Light from the mundane incandescent bulbs overpowered the mystery-inducing candle glow. Julie and the guy in the circle squinted. By then, the column of smoke had cleared, and the creature had disappeared. An odor of burning wax and brimstone remained.