Page 15
“Are those words?” Zee asked.
Taking the key to the nearest lamp, I flicked it on and shoved the key under the light. They were words, for sure. “Verity hides beneath light’s prison,” I read aloud.
Zee huffed and his tail thrashed, whipping up his anger and frustration. “Who the fuck is Verity, and why is her key in this closet where a dead guy is supposed to be?”
“It’s not a name. Verity means truth,” Victor explained, joining us by the lamp. “May I see?” He took the key from me and examined it. “This key is as old as this hotel. I estimate at least one hundred and fifty years.”
It was probably valuable. “Should we take it to lost property?”
“Should we? Yes. Will we?” Victor handed it back. “That may be unwise. There are malevolent forces at work within this hotel. Endless storms, frozen bodies, disappearing corpses, and that’s without mentioning the surveillance.”
“You just mentioned it,” Zee said, pointing a finger.
Victor ignored him. “Had the key been here before, Zodiac would have discovered it when he rummaged through every cupboard and drawer upon our arrival.”
“That’s true. It wasn’t in there earlier.”
“So someone took the body of the axe murderer and left us this old key?” It seemed . . . unlikely. Welcome to my life, where every day was unlikely. “Why?”
“To solve the riddle,” Victor said.
“Why do we have to solve it?” Zee whined. “Why does weird shit always happen to us? I vote we check out, get back on the road, and wave bonjour to this weird-ass hotel and its creepy concierge.”
“We can still do that.” The key had warmed from my touch. It had to be for this hotel, and it did seem as though it had been deliberately left for us to find. Perhaps we should walk away. We already had enough going on with my brother hunting us across North America. But I wasn’t sure I could walk away from the key and its riddle. I’d always wonder . . . why. I looked up and met Zee’s unimpressed frown. “Aren’t you curious?”
His purple eyebrows hiked up his forehead. “Nope.”
“Really?” He was always curious.
“No fuckin’ way.” He folded his arms. “Curiosity killed the bat. Do you wanna be like the bats, Kitten? Extinct?”
“Bats are not extinct,” Victor said.
“Well, they would be if they went chasing after creepy riddles.” A gust of howling wind rattled the window. “See, even the weather fuckin’ agrees.”
“We cannot leave until this storm passes,” Victor said.
I approached Zee and dangled the key in front of his face. His gaze tracked its swing. “Not even a little bit intrigued? We’re stuck here anyway. What’s the harm in looking around to kill time?”
Huffing, he turned his face away. “Nuh-uh. Nope. No.”
“An old key with a mysterious riddle in an ancient hotel? What if it leads to shiny treasure?”
He pouted. His tail flopped, no longer thrashing. “What kind of shiny treasure?” He side-eyed me.
“We won’t know if we don’t look,” I sang.
Victor joined me and Zee in the middle of the room. “If there is something of value hidden in this hotel, then that is likely why the vampires are here.”
“Suckers are after this?” Zee swiped the key from my fingers and scowled at it. “Fuck. Fine. I’m in. Whatever it opens, vampires getting their hands on it will be bad.” He handed it back and I dropped its heavy weight into my pocket.
“Alright, so we’re doing this, which means we need to figure out the clue.”
“Agreed. But we must remain vigilant. Whoever moved the body had access to this room while it was locked. Nowhere in this hotel is safe.”
“What a bundle of fuckin’ laughs you are.” Zee huffed and folded his arms again, clearly still not entirely on board with the riddle-solving idea. “So, if we gonna find this Verity girl, we have to find light’s prison?”
“Not a person,” Victor said again. “But if we want to find the truth, then we must determine what light’s prison is.”
