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“Oh! That bitch!” Rebecca suddenly gasped. “Lynne! My secretary! It was her! I think that revolting little cunt drugged me!”
“Is that who was with you?” Precipitation quirked his brows. “Everyone said you went to bed alone!”
“I thought so, but now I have this funny memory of Lynne arguing with me over my shoe. Maybe they didn’t notice her. She was always a mousy little thing.”
“I think the Thing took your shoe and hid it trying to stall,” Grant said. “Somehow he knew—”
“Ahem.” Mrs. Charles cleared her throat. “If you please, Mr. Baus has much to say.”
“Right.” Grant fidgeted. “Please. Go on.”
Huck wrapped his arm around Grant’s shoulders and pulled him closer. Though he was relieved that the Thing or Baus or whatever its name was didn’t want to take over Grant’s body, he still didn’t trust it one damn bit.
“Mr. Baus has longed for freedom, and he tried communicating his needs to Miss Janice,” Mrs. Charles said. “She grossly misconstrued his request and conflated it with her own twisted vision of a ritual that simply doesn’t exist.”
“Wait, so all those people that were killed?” Grant leaned into Huck with a heavy frown. “They died for nothing?”
“I am afraid so,” Mrs. Charles replied. “The gentleman did not understand Mr. Baus. A most unfortunate case of mistranslation that resulted in much unnecessary death.”
“And all he needed was someone with a psychic gift to break that haze or whatever it was he was trapped in?”
“Yes.”
“Holy fuck.” Huck stared at Janice. “Your Latin fuckingsucks.”
Janice said nothing as she was most likely unconscious.
“Obviously,” Grant mumbled. “So, uh, what now?”
Mrs. Charles turned to speak to Baus for a moment before saying, “Mr. Baus wishes to repair the damage he’s caused here. He will also be taking Miss Janice away to pay penance for her crimes.”
“What does that mean exactly?” Grant asked.
“Best not to worry about it, dearie.”
Baus waved his hand at the stairs, and the pieces of wood floated up into the air. Bit by bit, the shattered staircase melded back together. The steps magically folded up and aligned themselves as if giant magnets were stuck in them, and the railings unfurled down the side like a roll of ribbon unspooling. There were loud booms off in the distance, and the entire hotel shook with the force of the paranormal construction.
“What in the actual fuck?” Cary hissed. “This is… this…” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I have no idea what is even happening right now.”
“A very old spirit is trying to make amends,” Mrs. Charles said with a kind smile.
The hole in the wall and the hallway were next, seamlessly coming back together as easily as the stairs had. After only a few moments, there was no evidence that any part of the building had been damaged. The only thing that was different from before was that the staircase was no longer red.
The wood was now a perfectly normal shade of brown.
Baus patted the head of the lion sculpture at the bottom of the stairs with his finger, and he seemed pleased with his work. He walked over to Janice and then crouched down, his body losing its shape and becoming a cloud of red smoke.
Janice hadn’t moved since Mrs. Charles threw her into the wall earlier. She was breathing at least, but she appeared to still be knocked out.
Baus’s smoke enveloped Janice until she was almost completely hidden by the thick red vapor. Her body twitched, the smoke dissipated, and then she jolted up into a stiff sitting position. She looked around, blinking a few times as if trying to focus, and then she stood. When she spoke, it was in Latin, and she was speaking to Mrs. Charles again.
“Did we just seriously witness the fucking possession of our producer?” Cary asked in awe. “Did we… is that really what just happened?”
“It certainly appears that way,” Finn murmured.
“I wonder if he fixed the roof in the Captain’s Quarters,” Myrna wondered out loud.
“That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”
