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Zee stared at their hands.
“Look at me.”
His glittery purple eyes lifted to meet Victor’s silvery ones.
“I have never in countless centuries loved anyone the way I love you and Adam. The love I feel for you both is a heartfelt, visceral piece of me that cannot be unseated or dislodged on a whim. It has become a part of my being . . . dare I say even my soul. I simply do not exist and cannot function without you.”
Zee’s eyes grew wider with each of Victor’s words. He wasn’t used to being loved, none of us were, and sometimes that made us crazy. “You can’t function without me?” he whispered.
“Nothing will ever come between us.”
All the silly humor and overacting fell from Zee’s expression, leaving him open and vulnerable. He nodded and gave Victor’s hand a squeeze. “I uh . . .” He cleared his throat. “Just so you know, when this little treasure hunt is over, we’re gonna discuss this some more. Vigorously. Naked.”
“Of course.” Victor’s lips ticked.
They were so cute together.
“Ding-dong! Please return to your rooms for your own safety. Have a lovely, restful night’s sleep at the Stephanie Hotel.”
The guests seated around us all got up and headed for the lobby, as though being sent to their rooms was entirely normal. I watched them amble off leaving half-finished drinks and snacks behind. They were drugged. Not enough to be obvious, but enough to make them suggestible. Drugs didn’t work too well on me or Victor—and he rarely ate much anyway, unless it was from my veins—and Zee was Zee, who probably functioned better when drugged anyway. But even the other Lost Ones here seemed to be impacted.
“This hotel is creepy as fuck,” Zee mumbled, rising to his feet now we were the last to leave the bar.
I wrapped the cloth around the bell, keeping it out of sight from the bartender clearing the tables, and hurried after Zee, with Victor trailing us.
Back in our hotel room, now damp from the sprinklers, we used a small trash can to wedge open the door. The sound of the lock snicking was our cue to begin sleuthing.
“Looks like Wes is a no-show,” Zee said, leaning against the top-floor balustrade. “Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it soon. Midnight is five minutes away.”
“Alright, uhm . . . so let’s start without him. Where do we ring the bell?”
“Reception.” Victor said. “The concierge bell needs to be rung on the front desk, where it would originally have been situated.”
“Okay, and if Larimer is there?”
“Leave Larry to me,” Zee said.
As it turned out, Larimer was not at the front desk, and exactly the same as the previous night when Zee had done his walkabout, the hotel was weirdly quiet.
I scooted behind the desk and set the silver bell down next to its cheaper counterpart. The original gleamed as though glowing from within, although that could just have been the light from the chandelier.
Victor eyed the clock on the wall. “Two minutes.”
“Would you like to ding it, Zee?” I asked.
“Hell yes!” He cracked his knuckles, spun a hand, and hovered it over the bell.
“Not yet,” I warned, when he looked as though he was about to pounce.
“One minute,” Victor counted down.
Heavy, thumping footfalls sounded on the stairs, gradually descending, and we all turned our heads to stare toward the curved staircase. The descending steps thumped some more and a rich, throaty, grumbling laughter bubbled up. The figure who finally emerged had the same hulking mass as the person I’d seen enter our hotel room—the person who should be dead and packed in a closet.
The axe in his hand gleamed.
The dead guy was very alive.
“Trespassers,” the man hissed, raising his axe over his shoulder. With a sudden twitch, he flung the axe, sending it spinning through the air toward Zee.
