SOS HOTEL: Ho, Ho, No

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

“Look at him, he’s in fuckin’ vampire utopia.”

Victor rode the huge lobby escalator two steps above me and Zee. His black pants and black turtleneck sweater gave him a handsome, young-college-professor appearance. But from his unreadable face, it was hard to tell whether this was the best day out he’d had since he’d corrupted a virginal cult, or his worst nightmare because of that piece of furniture we’d bought that he’d put together for the hotel bar, and that he still couldn’t pass by without whipping out his ruler to make sure its angles hadn’t shifted.

He clutched the tiny wooden pencil now like a warrior clutches a sword, and scribbled on the little slip of paper we’d picked up on the way in.

“He has a list! A fuckin’ list... with bullet points and footnotes.” Zee snorted.

“How else will we know what the hotel requires?” Victor said, without looking back. Acute vampire hearing meant he heard everything, even our heartbeats, and Zee’s not-so-quiet whispers.

“You’ve got a photographic memory,” Zee continued, deciding this was the hill he wanted to die on.

The line of Victor’s shoulders tensed. His long dark hair had been braided so tight it swished against his back like Zee’s tail. “I do. However, I enjoy the physicality of holding a pencil.”

Zee blinked, and it seemed likely that behind those long pretty lashes that framed deep, emotive purple eyes, his thoughts plunged toward the spicier content where he was imagining all the other things Victor liked to hold. A grin curved his lips, and his gaze slid sideways, checking in to see if I was on the same mental journey. Pencil did sound a lot like penis, which happened to be one of Victor’s favorite words. And Zee’s.

“I know what you’re thinking, demon,” Victor said.

“Are we sure he doesn’t read minds?” Zee whispered.

“We’re sure,” both Victor and I answered together.

We stepped off the escalator onto a polished, open-plan landing, with a cute pink and white bedroom display to our right, and a stack of big blue wheelie-baskets to our left. The main exhibit however, was the enormous sparkly Christmas tree. We’d arrived at a blue and yellow cathedral-like wonderland, bejeweled with holiday cheer.

Zee’s dark pupils grew, drinking in the tree’s shiny baubles and twinkling lights. “Fuck, that’s the biggest shiny thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Didn’t you have a holiday tree at Razorsedge?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah.” He shrugged.

“I’m sure it resembled every other normal, decorated tree found in living rooms up and down the country,” Victor said, collecting a basket with an efficient flick of his wrist.

Zee screwed up his nose. “We decorated it with whatever we had laying around... condoms, cuffs. Butt plugs make great baubles, but baubles do not make great butt plugs—ask me how I know.”

I winced. “Nope, not asking that.”

“It was a hit with the regulars.”

The bauble butt plugs or the tree? I didn’t dare ask.

“The condoms weren’t used ,” Zee added, following along behind Victor. “Demons don’t really do Christmas or holidays. A squishy human was born... It’s fuckin’ massacre time if you happen to be a turkey... Mariah Carey sings, a lot... and I get a whole lot more likes on my socials for wearing a fluffy red hat.”

And I suspected that was all he was wearing. “Jesus,” I said as we ambled forward, following Victor’s marching pace into the temple of green and yellow devoted to all things Scandinavian furniture.

“Alright, Kitten. No need to get spicy about it.”

“No, I mean... the squishy human? Jesus was born, right? On Christmas day.” I was very human, so I knew these things.

“Him again.” Zee rolled his eyes. “Such an attention seeker. Also, why’d he change his name to Gareth?”

“Uh . . . He did?”

“Baby Gareth. King of Christmas? That Gareth?”

Were we talking about the same person? “I guess.” Admittedly, I didn’t know much about human religions and rituals. Humans didn’t have a Wilson’s Guide , like the Lost Ones did. If you were human, you were just expected to know human things. I’d read a lot of human books, though. Some books. Mostly those left in the hotel.

“It must have fuckin’ sucked having his birthday on Christmas Day. Imagine only getting presents once a year.” Zee heaved a sigh, then smiled. “Birthdays are the best.”

“It wasn’t Christmas when he was born,” Victor intervened from a few steps ahead.

“Uh, yes it was.” Zee rolled his eyes at Victor’s back. “Everyone knows Gareth was born on Christmas Day. They sing a fuckin’ song about it. Aren’t you supposed to be intelligent?”

“I thought so too, but conversing with you generally reduces my IQ.”

“Because I am smarterer.”

Both Victor and I let that one slide, and Victor pushed on by adding, “At the time, Jesus had more pressing matters than fewer presents. Besides, humanity’s holiday season has grown into a time of being thankful for family and human life in general. It’s no longer reserved for a single religion. Lost Ones could learn a great deal by participating in human rituals.”

Zee side-eyed me. I shrugged. Victor knew more about humans than we did. He’d spent centuries among them. He was also right about most things.

“He’s almost as old as Gareth,” Zee mumbled.

We sauntered toward the main entrance, with Victor ahead, list in hand and basket at his side, clearly on a mission to retrieve everything we needed to smarten up the hotel for the holidays. Zee sashayed behind him, wings hidden, but still larger than life wearing an oversized pink sweater, a tiny pair of black ass-hugging shorts, fishnet tights with a snake design woven into them, and boots with soft soles, no heels. The outfit was subtle, but he still managed to make sure everyone noticed him.

We veered toward a section of plants, where Zee picked up a mug-sized spiky cactus, grinning at its provocative shape.

“Do not linger,” Victor advised, eyeing the dick-shaped cactus, then Zee’s grin. His eyebrow of judgment arched, and Zee’s grin pinched into a frown. “We have a limited amount of time and a long list of items to procure before the store closes.”

Zee headed back toward Victor, carrying the little cactus. “If your admittedly very fine, lily-white ass wasn’t terminally allergic to sunlight, we’d have more time to shop, Fancy Fangs.”

“I did offer to begin this trip earlier, at my peril,” Victor sniped back.

I’d refused to let Victor suffer in daylight just for some new hotel furniture. “We can visit for longer another time,” I told them. Our trip hadn’t started out the best. Downtown traffic had been bad, and we’d arrived later in the evening than we’d planned for. This wasn’t so much a shopping spree as a shopping mission that needed to be completed in record time.

Zee narrowed his eyes at Victor, and carefully placed the spiky cactus in the bottom of the bright yellow basket. Straightening, he grinned again and folded his arms, waiting for Victor’s comment. A few other shoppers maneuvered around the pair of them, avoiding Zee’s swishing tail.

We’d barely begun and they were already in a standoff over a tiny dick-shaped cactus. But this was how they did things. Contempt during the day, scorching shenanigans at night.

“Hey Zee, wanna see if there’s a bed big enough for three?” I suggested. It was probably best we left Victor to complete the important list, while Zee and I wandered off to browse for things we probably didn’t need.

“Why, yes I do.” He scooted around Victor, then leaned back in. “Touch my spiky dick at your own risk, Daddy Fancy Pants.” He waggled his fingers in a wave and swaggered ahead, so he didn’t see Victor’s surrendering smile.

Victor dipped his chin at me in silent thanks for distracting Zee, leaving him to get the job done. He was happier working down his list, and Zee was happier bouncing on beds. I was just happy to be out with the both of them in a location where we were unlikely to be kidnapped, shot at, or murdered.

“Wait up...” I hurried after Zee, and caught up just as he stopped and stared at a large arrow stuck to the floor, pointing the way.

“What’s that for?” he asked, tail lashing.

The big yellow arrow he’d avoided pointed toward the bed section up ahead, where another arrow continued to point out the suggested route. “You gotta follow the arrows so you don’t miss anything,” I told him.

He screwed up his nose. “Can’t we just amble?”

“Sure. Nobody is going to stop us. It’s just a thing these stores have, I guess. Maybe so people don’t get lost?”

“Hold up. People get lost in these places?”

“It’s real big and there aren’t any windows, so yeah... I guess. I mean, before they put the arrows in.”

Zee eyed the arrow again. “Were they ever found?”

“Who?”

“The lost people.”

“I dunno... I guess that’s why we follow the arrows.”

“Follow the arrows, right.” He straightened, and used his fingers to fluff the hair between his horns. “We have got this.”

With a chuckle, I looped my arm in his and we wandered along the arrow pathways, checking out all the immaculately presented rooms, which despite the bargain price tags we couldn’t afford. We could dream though. Zee, of course, loved the rooms full of candy colors and sparkle. We both agreed that Victor would have loved the all-black and very boring vampire kitchen.

After weaving through the fancy showrooms, we reached the kids’ section, where Zee made a beeline for an enormous box of small, colorful rubber balls.

“Not for eating,” I warned.

He rolled his eyes and grinned, as he plucked a ball out of the mound of thousands like it and gave it a squeeze. “What’s it do?”

“It’s kinda doing it, I think.”

The rubber ball twanged from his fingers, pinged off the floor, and struck a lamp on the end of a shelf filled with desk lights. The lamp toppled. Zee poofed to the shelf and caught the teetering lamp, but the bouncy ball was on its own mission to wipe out anything in its path. It boinged off a mirror and hurtled toward a shelf of glass ornaments.

My heart dropped.

Zee poofed again, and reappeared in front of the fragile shelf. He snatched the ball in the air and froze.

Hand up, ball clutched in his fist, he blinked as though expecting to hear fifty glass trinkets raining to the floor behind him. But he’d stopped the ball. The glass trinkets were safe. And nobody had died.

Disaster averted.

Zee grinned, shook himself all over and shrugged the whole escapade off. “Lightning fuckin’ reflexes. Did you just see that?” He tossed me the ball.

And that was his mistake.

I had my hands shoved in my pockets and struggled to yank them out in time to catch the bouncy ball.

It twanged off my forehead.

I reeled, surprised, and nudged the giant box of balls. Honestly, I’m not sure exactly what happened after that, just that the entire container of bouncy balls exploded, springing balls in all directions. Several struck Zee like rubber bullets, knocking him into the shelf of fragile things. After that there was a whole lot of noise, some screaming, sounds of lots of fragile things breaking, and... So. Many. Rubber. Balls.

Everywhere.