3.0 - Shadows In The Garden Hotel

by Krista Walsh

  It couldn’t belong to Cody. He hadn’t left any behind.

  “I brought you this,” Katie said, offering the scotch. “I figured you could use some liquid courage more than whatever bottled water they gave you up here.”

  Allegra knocked it back, too distracted to appreciate the high quality of the drink.

  As soon as the alcohol hit her system, acid fizzled in her stomach. She sensed Courtney’s and Katie’s curiosity, their desire to hear everything that had happened, but Allegra wasn’t about to indulge them.

  She wrapped one arm around her middle even as she forced her spine to straighten. The skin between her shoulder blades pinched. She winced and got to her feet, stepping closer to the vanity table and setting the empty tumbler on the surface. In the reflection of the mirror, she stared at the angry red welt in the space between her neck and shoulder. The draugr’s sting had shredded her skin when she’d wrenched away. Blood had dried over her collarbone and gotten caught in her hair. In the rush of the fight and the numbness of her shock, the pain had let her be, but now that she was staring at the wound, it burned through her, sending shocks of searing heat down her arm and into her head.

  “Ms. Rossi?” Detective Kealey’s sympathetic voice came from behind her, and Allegra turned toward where she stood in the doorway. “The paramedics have arrived. It would be good to let them take a look at your shoulder.”

  Allegra considered telling her it wasn’t necessary. She would heal in a day or two and no one would be the wiser. Then she thought of her reputation — the burden of an image she had worked so hard to build that was now nothing but an exhausting weight — and she knew she had to oblige. Especially with Courtney and Katie here as witnesses. Allegra Rossi, model and socialite, would never allow anything to scar her flawless skin.

  So, playing the role, she nodded and turned the chair around to face the room.

  At Kealey’s silent command, Courtney and Katie slipped into the hallway, both of them sending looks back toward Allegra that she couldn’t decipher between concern and nosiness.

  Kealey dropped down on the edge of the bed where Allegra had previously been sitting, and crossed one leg over the other, balancing her notebook on her knee.

  “You say you were outside in the garden when this happened?” she asked.

  The paramedic laid her kit on the vanity table and set to work on Allegra’s neck. The sting of the alcohol tugged Allegra back to the fight with the draugr, and she restrained her instinct to attack the person causing her pain. She curled her hands into fists in her lap and focused on the detective sergeant, nodding at the question. She steeled herself to deliver the story that her frazzled mind had been able to come up with, hoping it covered all the essential points.

  “The morning was hectic, and I felt the need for some fresh air in the garden. I know the area is still off-limits, but the front courtyard is too void of privacy. I left the door open to make sure it remained unlocked behind me, and while I was outside, I thought I heard something upstairs. When I went to come inside, a shape attacked me in the doorway. It knocked me down and then ran into the garden. When I got up, I chased after whoever it was, thinking it might have been someone trying to break into the hotel. I was too slow — the shape had already disappeared. So I went back to my room to see what had happened, and the next thing I knew I saw Lee”— she paused, trying to hold back tears that were far too real — “the cook — injured on the floor. He must have been passing by when the break-in happened and gone in to stop him.”

  The room filled with a chemical odor as the paramedic readied the antiseptic, and Allegra wrinkled her nose, even as she welcomed the distraction from her thoughts of Lee. That smell would be hanging around her all afternoon until the police were done with her. She was counting the minutes until she could shower and allow her body to begin its own healing processes.

  “You should have called for security,” Kealey said. “It was dangerous going after him yourself.”

  Allegra gave a weak laugh and curled the end of her hair around her index finger. “You are probably right. Perhaps I should have stayed where I was and screamed for help.”

  Or sent Lee after the fleeing draugr and stayed with the one still at the door. It would not have gotten in if I’d been here.

  Her hindsight had run in overdrive as she’d gone through her story, and all it did was leave her feeling guiltier.

  She wished she didn’t have to bother lying. If what she suspected was correct, these detective sergeants knew there was more to the story than some thief trying to get into her room. Both of them had seen Cody the day before. They would know he shouldn’t look so haggard and frail.

  The paramedic taped a bandage over Allegra’s shoulder, and the contact of the cotton stung like nettles. Allegra gritted her teeth and clutched the material of her skirt.

  “Did you see or hear anything as you came back up the stairs?” Kealey pressed, and Allegra was grateful for the excuse to think of anything other than the pain.

  She shook her head. “Everything was over by then. I went in and found Lee. I went to see if he was all right, and when I turned, there was Cody —”

  Her voice gave out. Kealey nodded and jotted the information down in her notebook.

  Allegra waited, hoping to be dismissed, but the detective pressed her lips together. She glanced toward the crime scene technicians moving around in the room across the hall and at the paramedic who was now packing up. She nodded her thanks to the woman as she left, then returned her attention to Allegra and scooched along the edge of the bed to close the distance between them.

  Dropping her voice so no one else would hear, Kealey said, “Before you say one more word, I want you know that I know you’re not telling the whole truth.”

  Allegra sat up straighter, but said nothing.

  Kealey eyed her closely. “After you found the corpse in the garden and we got our first whiff of supernatural bullshit around here, my partner put in a call to a woman named Daphne Heartstone. Do you know her?”

  Allegra’s surprise at Kealey’s first declaration faded under this fresh revelation of Daphne’s involvement. “I do, yes.”

  “He asked her what the chances were of you being involved with these deaths. She assured us you probably weren’t responsible. That, if anything, you might be able to help us. So give me the real story here. This wasn’t a regular attack, was it? There’s something else going on. Something that some people might call…magic.”

  She said the word as though it tasted foul, and Allegra suppressed a smile, her first urge to express amusement since finding Cody. She stared into the detective’s brown eyes for any sign of disbelief or disdain, but she didn’t see anything except discomfort. Detective Meg Kealey believed. She didn’t like it, but just like Cody, her eyes had been opened. The difference was that she was better trained to handle it.

  Allegra considered her options before she spoke. She could guarantee her secret and lie, but doing so would keep the investigation in the realm of the mundane, which would mean more of a police presence while they worked to discover who had broken into the hotel and attacked Lee and Cody. Or she could admit the truth. If these detectives knew something about her world, perhaps they would prove useful to her.

  In the end, she nodded.

  Kealey’s cheeks puffed out as she released a breath. “And what role do you play here?”

  Allegra frowned. “I should not have had any role. I arrived here an ignorant guest like everyone else, but unfortunately I could not avoid these creatures. They are connected to the corpse we found in the garden. Or so I thought. We performed a ritual that was supposed to get rid of them, but apparently it failed to drive them out.”

  Kealey mouthed the word “ritual” with a shake of her head. “Are you a sorceress, too?” she asked.

  Allegra raised an eyebrow, curious about how much Daphne had shared with these detectives. “No, not exactly. But I am of that world.”

  “What happened after
the ritual didn’t work?” Kealey asked.

  Allegra raised a shoulder. “You have seen the result. I chased one into the garden and killed it. Lee managed to kill the one that came in here after Cody. Apparently he was not fast enough.”

  The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Is it over now? You’ve killed them?”

  Allegra offered her a rueful smile. “I wish I could say for certain. We killed two of them, but I do not know how many there are. I do not know how they survived the ritual. They feed on energy from a connection with the source. I broke that connection and they’re still here, which means something else has to be supplying their power. Until we find out what the new source is, there could be more.”

  “Great,” Kealey said around a heavy sigh. “My partner thought something like this might be the case, but I crossed my fingers he was wrong.”

  Allegra pressed her lips together, considering. The idea of passing the responsibility of the draugrs over to the police came as a great temptation. These detectives knew of her world, and they were prepared to deal with it. She could step away.

  But if she did, her failure over Cody would haunt her. She needed a chance to atone.

  “I will find a way to resolve this,” she said. “Before I leave the hotel, these draugrs will be destroyed.”

  Kealey eyed her with no small amount of skepticism. Then her shoulders drooped. “I believe you. But keep me informed. This is our investigation, and I don’t want it all to go to hell if something comes up that you can’t handle. This needs to get wrapped up before we lose anyone else. In the meantime, you’d better get some rest while we finish up here. Hopefully we won’t have any more questions.”

  Allegra rose to her feet and cast one final look toward the room across the hall. The medical examiner hadn’t left yet, but Allegra doubted he’d find anything useful. Cody had been a solid, healthy young man who’d made an error in judgment by getting involved with her. None of that would show under a microscope.

  Kealey left the room and Allegra closed the door behind her. In the silence, she sank to the floor and buried her head in her arms.

  ***

  Through the veil of gray clouds, the sun followed its course across the sky, but Allegra was only vaguely aware of the passing hours.

  When the stiffness in her hips and knees dragged her out of her dazed meditation, she rose off the floor and stepped into a shower that lasted until the water ran cold. She washed the blood off her hands and the antiseptic out of the wound on her shoulder, which smarted under the spray — the stinger had pierced through every layer of skin, exposing the white of the muscle tissue underneath.

  Once she was dry, she sat down in the chair beside the window. And there she stayed, watching the sun struggle to be seen through the thick clouds.

  The rain had stopped, but in the distance thicker clouds drifted closer, as though New Haven were to be cursed with a flood following its unusual snow. Allegra hoped it would rain again. She was in no mood for sunny skies and cool breezes. She wanted weather that matched her state of mind. She wanted a sky that cried for her so she wouldn’t have to do it herself. Twice she’d gotten a glimpse of herself in the mirror — her bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes, her smeared makeup — and had turned away in disgust.

  She told herself she was no savior — no goddess whose mission it was to guard and protect. Her only goal was her own survival, regardless of who might get caught in the crossfire.

  But the words she’d grown up telling herself had lost their meaning.

  Cody’s energy had worked its way into her heart, and now he was gone.

  She drew her knees close to her middle and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on top. The compression worked to keep the fragile pieces of her core together. She kept her attention out the window as the dark clouds blocked the setting sun, casting the front courtyard deep in shadow.

  She tried to force her thoughts to weave a plan of how to stop the draugrs and Tim from destroying anyone else, but she couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything other than Tim’s red-faced rage the last time she’d seen him. His threats echoed in her ears, each repetition a reminder of how she’d let her fear get in the way of protecting Cody.

  At some point in the evening, a knock sounded at her door. She didn’t get up to answer it.

  “Allegra?” Lee called from the other side. “I just wanted to come and see how you were doing. The cops told me what went on, and you’ve got to be hurting as much as I am.” He paused. “I don’t know what to say, really, other than that I’m sorry and to explain what happened. I promise I did the best —”

  “Please go,” Allegra said. She cleared her throat and licked her lips, wanting to make sure her voice was steady before she added, “I have no doubt you did everything you could to save him, but I wish to be alone.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked. “Why don’t you come downstairs and I’ll serve you up some of that Horton chicken recipe, eh? Maybe open a good bottle of bourbon, and we can share that between us. You know, a toast. I’m sure Cody’d like that.”

  Allegra’s throat thickened, and for a moment she couldn’t say anything. She stared into the courtyard until the muscles in her jaw relaxed. “Perhaps later. For now, I would rather you left me alone.”

  A stretch of silence from the other side, and then, “All right. But make sure you get something in your stomach. It’s been a long day.”

  She listened for his footsteps to walk away, then sank into her chair. She pressed her fingers to her head as the band that had taken up residence around her heart climbed to her skull and squeezed.

  She glanced at her bed, tempted to bury herself under the covers and sleep until tomorrow. Then it would be time to go home. She could return to her apartment and indulge in that piece of tiramisu. Seven hells, she might order the entire cake. Then she could break into a bottle of expensive scotch and lose herself in a haze of alcohol and sugar until her mind settled into its old patterns. It wouldn’t take her long. Just like her body, she was sure her thoughts only needed a day or two to heal. Within a week, she would be the cold, self-minded Allegra she knew so well. She would believe that Cody’s death had been his own fault for not taking proper precautions.

  But even as she looked forward to tomorrow, she hated the thought of lying in the large hotel bed alone, left to stare at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. She was never one to be afraid of the dark, being a creature of the darkness herself, but today, Allegra dreaded staring into the nothingness — afraid of what she might find staring back at her. So she stayed in her chair and returned her attention to the courtyard.

  Before long, though, a disturbance downstairs invaded her senses. She turned toward the door and tilted her head to make out the sounds drifting up the stairs. When she recognized Tim’s yelling voice, her muscles tensed, and she grabbed hold of the chair’s armrests.

  At first, she didn’t understand anything of his roaring rumble, but eventually some words pressed through the others: “…reputation…get you thrown out on your ass if I hear one more word out of your goddamned mouth.”

  Allegra’s stomach tightened as she realized his voice was getting louder, coming closer. Up the stairs? Was he coming for her? Did he know that she had been moved across the hall from her old room, isolated from her crew and the few remaining guests?

  She remained braced until the knots in her neck shot into her head. Then the voices faded, and she relaxed as she accepted he wasn’t about to barge in.

  She wished he hadn’t come back here. Undoubtedly the police had told him not to leave town, but, even still, she wished he had decided to be daring and run away before they inevitably found the evidence that would convict him. Instead, she was trapped in the hotel until she put the draugr to rest, caught within reach of Tim’s anger.

  A shiver ran under Allegra’s skin like a current. She hugged her legs tighter against her chest to still the tremors, then jumped as a soft knock sounded on her door.

/>   As Allegra shifted toward the noise, she imagined Tim standing in the hallway, waiting for her to answer, his decomposing friends flanking him on either side to complete his original mission.

  She dug her fingers into the soft gray upholstery, her nails piercing through the rough material. For the first time since finding Cody, her demon instincts stretched in her mind, awakening her desire to fight.

  Tim was welcome to try to take her down, but she would not make it easy for him.

  “Allegra? It’s Matthew.”

  As though someone had punched her in the stomach, the energy drained out of her in a breath, and she sagged deeper into her chair.

  “Go away, please,” she said, staring out the window. She couldn’t cope with him on top of everything else. She’d said everything she needed to say.

  “Look, I know what’s going on in your head. I’m feeling like shit about it, too — I should never have let him help me dig up Penny’s body. Should never have let him get involved. I don’t blame you for wanting to be alone, but you shouldn’t be. Just let me in so we can talk about this.”

  “No.”

  The word came so easily after so many years of practice that she didn’t stop to ask herself if it was the answer she actually wanted to give. It didn’t matter anyway. Matthew was safer on the other side of the door.

  “I’m not going away, and you know I can be just as stubborn as you are.”

  Allegra closed her eyes and exhaled, frustration and irritation chasing each other through her mind. And beneath them, desire. It flared so suddenly in her blood, she found herself half out of her chair before she realized she’d moved. She stopped, angry at herself. She had to be strong and keep him away, no matter how badly she wanted him. Her weakness could get him killed. Hadn’t Cody been evidence enough of that?

  The silence on either side of the door stretched on, each second strumming Allegra’s taut nerves with a twang.