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SOS Hotel: Halloween: One Star Nightmare

Page 2

by Adam Vex

“Assassins for hire certainly do not dress in suits, demon.”

“Ha, you see! You know how they dress, ergo you know at least one. Call him or her. I want to hire them to kill this keyboard warrior.” He jabbed a purple-tipped nail at the screen.

Victor turned the laptop so I could see over his shoulder what had gotten Zee all worked up. It never took much. Victor’s long black hair in the bathroom? Zee meltdown. No more macaroni in the kitchen? Zee meltdown. Bad reviews like the one on the Hotels4U website he’d been looking at on the laptop? Zee meltdown.

“I see . . .” Victor rumbled.

I skim-read the review. Someone hadn’t liked our attempt at Halloween decorations and had called us a half-baked hotel. For a hotel full of weirdos, they aren’t that scary. Terrible staff, especially the demon. One star.

We were weirdos, though, so they weren’t all wrong. Poor Zee, he’d put a lot of effort into dressing up the hotel to make it look old and spooky—although it looked old and spooky on the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year too.

“You can’t please everyone,” I said.

Zee frowned. “Kitten, you’re cute, but this is an afront to my reputation as the hotel’s events organizer and customer experience manager.” He tapped the badge pinned to his maid’s outfit.

Zodiac!

The BEST Customer Experience Manager.

I really needed to ask what experience that badge referred to.

“It’s just one bad review—” I began.

Zee’s purple eyes widened. “Ooh, what’s that?” He’d spotted my drink.

He reached past Victor, grabbed my drink—still leaning across Victor—and downed it in one breathless gulp. Victor watched Zee’s throat move, lips parting. There was a lot Zee could do with his throat . . . and my bet was Victor’s thoughts had gone straight there, especially with how Zee was currently dressed.

Zee’s tail came up. Its tip swept along Victor’s jawline, as Zee slid his gaze sideways and captured Victor’s thirsty glare. As an incubus, and a powerful one, Zee knew exactly what he was doing.

I hid my smile behind a hand.

“Hm . . .” Zee purred, licking his lips and sitting back down, his body moving all slow and deliberate, feeding on Victor’s attention. “Now that’s a drink.”

“That’ll be eighteen bucks,” Tom said.

Zee narrowed his eyes at Tom Collins.

Our bartender sighed. “Fine, twenty.”

“Ha, joke’s on you, I don’t have twenty bucks. Sassy Fangs, pay him.”

“Regrettably, I also do not have twenty dollars on my person.”

Both of them looked at me. I sighed, dug into my pocket, and tossed a twenty onto the bar. “We definitely can’t afford a hitman.”

“Fine, then I’ll file a complaint. There’s a button right here.” Zee hit a button and fluttered his lashes at the laptop screen. “Maybe it’s not working. The wards are messing with the electronics again. Ugh, a chatbot. I am too fabulous for this AI nonsense—no offense, Tom. I have to log in and fill in a form? Kill me now.” He clicked manically. “Human, human, human. Yes, yes, yes.”

“What are you saying yes to?” Victor enquired calmly.

“The fuck if I know. Something about consequences? Nobody cares. I want to message a human about this review, not a bot.”

“Consequences?” I repeated.

Victor was way ahead of me and grabbed the laptop, turning it back toward us so we could see the screen.

I leaned against Victor’s back again, put my hand on his shoulder, and read the chat window.

HELLO VALUED HOTELS4U HOSPITALITY PROVIDER, I AM BUNGO. I CAN ASSIST YOU WITH MULTIPLE ISSUES TODAY. WOULD YOU LIKE HELP WITH THE REMOVAL OF YOUR FAKE FIVE-STAR REVIEWS OF SOS HOTEL OR SOMETHING ELSE?