Siren's Curse (Hotel Paranormal) by Bond Collins Margo

Author:Bond Collins,Margo [Bond Collins,Margo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bathory Gate Press
Published: 2016-09-19T16:00:00+00:00

Kirka

Selena returned with drinks for all of us, and did a good job of summarizing the situation with the Titans for the human at the table: they were immensely powerful, imprisoned, and trying to break out in a way likely to destroy not merely one world, but all worlds.

But Selena knew something I didn't. "Somehow, the Titans are using The Hotel as a focal point for their attack on reality," she said.

I blinked. The Hotel was impenetrable. Invulnerable. "How?" I asked.

The bartender shook her head, her carefully coiffed curls moving only slightly. "We're uncertain. No one on staff admits to knowing anything. That's why we decided, after … consultation … to call the two of you in." The slight hesitance in her voice suggested that I probably shouldn't ask with whom they had consulted. If I got an answer at all, I almost certainly wouldn't like it.

For all I knew, The Hotel itself spoke to the staff.

"So are these Titans monsters, or gods?" Zale asked, bringing my attention back to the issue at hand.

Selena and I looked at each other for a long time.

What humans who moved too far from the ways of magic—and let's be honest, that's pretty much all of them—what those humans forget is that to name something is to create it. No one who knew much of the Titans wanted to afford them any more power than they already had.

"What we call them doesn't matter," Selena finally said, skirting the truth without outright lying. "They are powerful and dangerous."

I nodded. "And they don't care if they destroy entire worlds in their quest to gain their freedom."

"In fact," Selena added, "some of them would do so simply for the joy of destruction."

Zale ticked off points on his fingertips. "Powerful. Dangerous. Able to destroy worlds." He narrowed his eyes and looked back and forth between us. "And what, precisely, are the two of us supposed to be able to do about them?"

No one answered him for a long moment—so long, that he spoke again. "I see. The entire staff of Monster Hotel is afraid to go up against these guys, so you're going to send in one human cop and The Little Mermaid here?"

My mouth tightened, but I worked to show no other reaction. He knew precisely how rude he meant to be, so it didn't matter that the basis of his reference was in fact one of my favorite stories—a tale designed to show precisely how dangerous it was for mer-folk to interact with humans at all.

Of course, I also knew that the story was one of Poseidon's fabrications, designed to keep the mer away from humanity.

I knew too much.

And in the case of the Titans' incursion into other realities, I also knew too little.

Selena laughed, and reached across the table to place her hand on Zale's forearm. He flinched and frowned, and she pulled her hand back. "You have no idea what you're capable of," she said.

Then she reached out and touched her fingertips to the back of my hand.

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