The car came to a halt, and I realized that we were now parked in the parking lot outside the boat launch. There were lights all around and a security guard sitting in one of those portable towers you usually see at the mall.
“According to my GPS,” Melody said, “This is the place.”
We got out of the car, grabbed our overnight bags from the trunk, and walked up the wooden pier to the Golden Queen. She was a big boat, and she was decorated from prow to stern with white lights and red, white, and blue bunting.
“We’re really doing this,” said Tara.
Melody looked at her. “Yeah, it was even your idea.”
“I know. I just thought it would be easy. But at the worst, they will just turn us away, right? And we’ll just drive home and pretend we were never here?”
“Right,” said Melody.
I was not so confident, but I didn’t say anything. We had come here to “stop Orla,” and Orla meant ‘golden queen’ in some Celtic language, so we were here to at least figure out what that meant. And besides, this might be fun, right? Riiiight.
We walked into the lobby and I had to admit, it was a little intimidating. I had never been anywhere so ostentatious before, and all the mahogany and marble and crystal chandeliers had me a little dazzled, and if I was dazzled, then you could say that Melody and Tara were awestruck. None of us had expected the Golden Queen to be this luxurious.
“Now I know why Myrtle was so excited about coming here. This is beautiful.”
“May I help you?” said a lady behind the check-in counter.
Melody walked over to the counter and pulled up her purse to rummage through it. “Hi. We have a reservation. Margaret Clark?”
The lady looked at Melody for a moment and glanced at Tara and me. Then she nodded and typed something into her computer. “May I see your credit card?” she asked and held out a hand.
Melody pulled the card out of her wallet and handed it to the lady. The lady took it, compared the name and number to what she was seeing on the screen, and then handed it back. But just before Melody could take it, the lady turned it over to look at the signature. She paused. “May I see your ID?”
Tara’s hand tightened in mine. “Crap,” she muttered.
“Sure, just a sec,” said Melody, pulling her ID out of her wallet. “It’s my grandmother’s card,” she said, explaining, “But you can see that my address and her address are the same? She made the reservation but she’s running late, so we said we would just go ahead and check in and wait for her to get here.”
The lady scrutinized the driver’s license, the two addresses -- one on the computer screen and one on the license -- and nodded. Then she handed the license back to Melody. She typed something into the computer and said blithely, “You’re aware that you must be eighteen to enter the Casino?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Melody, nodding. “We’re just here to hang out with my Gram for a couple of days.”
“Well, I better not catch any of you in there.”
“No ma’am, you won’t.”
The woman gave Melody a tight-lipped smile and handed her two plastic key cards in a cardboard envelope. “Your room is 244. Up the elevator, down the hall, and all the way to the right.”
“Thank you,” said Melody in earnest.
I felt Tara give my hand a squeeze. I looked down to see her grinning face, and caught a glimpse of some movement out of the corner of my eye. A man in a dark suit standing at the back of the room was watching us very intently as we headed to the elevator. I couldn’t tell if he was a con or if he was casino security, but either way, I felt my gut clench.
The room itself was nice, even though it was small. Real estate on a riverboat had to be hard to come by, so there was no wasted space. Two queen-sized beds took up most of the room and a television in the corner took up the rest. There was a small bathroom with a shower, but since we didn’t actually plan on spending the night, none of us were worried about how large the shower was.
“What should we do first?” asked Melody, sitting on the bed closest to the door. “Do we scout the boat a little bit first, or do we just pull the board out and get to work?”
“Maybe we scout the boat while we’re trying to locate the restaurant for some food?” I asked, my stomach rumbling.
“You just ate before we left,” Melody said.
“That was over two hours ago. And I’m a growing boy. I mean, look at my muscles. Can’t keep guns like these going on just one sad little cheeseburger a day.” I flexed my arm and Melody rolled her eyes while Tara giggled and stood up on her tiptoes to kiss me. That’s my girl. I kissed her back. And then I kissed her again because I liked the first one so much.
“OMG, get a room, you two.”
“We’re already in a room,” said Tara, sneaking a sly glance at Melody. That made us all laugh. After making sure that I had a room key and Melody had one too, we left on our reconnaissance mission / quest for food.
The ship was pretty big, but after walking it for a while, I realized it wasn’t as big as we first thought. A large portion of the ship was taken up by the Casino. The other large portion was made up of hotel rooms. Other than that, there was a restaurant on the ground floor, a promenade deck that went all the way around the outside of the boat, and a cocktail lounge and ballroom on the top that we couldn’t go into because we weren’t old enough. Now I could see why the lady at the front desk was looking at us so strangely. This definitely was not a kid-friendly place. Luckily, we didn’t come here to enjoy ourselves – we were on a mission.
After we ate and scavenged some pamphlets from the front desk about the history of the boat, we headed back to the room, Styrofoam containers filled with dessert and cups filled to the brim with soda. The girls arranged the food on the slim table that the TV was mounted above and got out the Spirit Board. I settled myself on the other bed and went to town on my piece of dessert. “Just let me know when you guys are ready,” I said, my mouth full of cherry-covered cheesecakey-goodness.
“We’re ready,” said Tara. She patted a section of the bed next to her, and I scooped the last large bit of dessert into my mouth before settling in beside her.
Tara handed the notepad and pencil to Melody who put it off to the side, and then we each put a hand on the planchette. It was hard to get a good grip with us all kneeling around the bed, and finally we just decided to sit on the bed and lean in around the board.
We exchanged looks. Tara took a breath.
“Hello, spirits of the ether, we greet you. Please commune with us. We are looking for a spirit named Matthew. Matthew, will you please come forward?”
I guess I thought that it would happen quickly. I mean, at the clubhouse the planchette had started moving right away, but then I had to remind myself, Tyler was the one driving it and Tyler wasn’t here. Also, we didn’t actually think it would work, and now the three of us were intently depending on Matthew’s spirit to come through. I shifted my weight on the bed and it caused the board to rock. Melody gave me a look and I shrugged in apology.
“Matthew, are you there?”
Long breathless silence – minutes stretched out, and there was nothing.
Tara was about to speak again when Melody cut her off.
“Matthew? This is Melody. We’re here. We heard you. Can you speak to us?”
I tightened my abs to make my slouching position on the bed less uncomfortable and tried really hard not to feel either frustrated or stupid. I looked across at Tara who was visibly disappointed and to Melody who seemed almost as if she were angry.
“Come on,” she said through gritted teeth. “Matthew, if you’re there, please tell us.”
There was a rustle from the other side of the room, near the closet, and we all froze. Two sets of frightened eyes met mine and I felt that familiar rush of adrenaline surge up my spine.
A very hard and loud pounding on the door made us all jump practically out of our skins, and I jumped off the bed into a sort of stan
ding crouch – horse stance – like my kickboxing instructor had taught me.
“Hotel Security. Open up.” The irritated man’s voice was accompanied by another loud pounding on the door.
The girls made small cries of surprise, but my eyes had not left the door. I thought instantly of the man in the dark suit down in the lobby, the one I knew instinctively was watching us. I looked around for a weapon of some kind–not sure at all what I would do once I found it—but there was nothing. I balled my hands into fists.
The rattle of the key in the lock made a soft snick and the door swung open, the dark shape of the man from downstairs looming in the doorway, and another shape behind him: more feminine, with gray hair.
“Melody, how could you?”
Melody’s grandmother was standing in the hallway peering into the room. She cast her glance around, looking each one of us in the eye. Then her gaze slid down to the Spirit Board on the bed. “I see,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Lobo. I’ll take it from here.”
The man in the suit nodded at Melody’s grandmother, handed her the key card he’d used to get into the room, and spun on his heel to retreat down the hall.
“You have one chance, and one chance only, to tell me what you three are doing here, or I will hand you over to hotel security and let the police take you down to the station for credit-card fraud.”
33. MELODY
I knew when Gram was bluffing. This was not one of those times.
When she looked at the Spirit Board, I didn’t see anything alarming in her expression – and that alone should have clued me in. I thought of all the explanations I could try, but I couldn’t think of anything that was any more believable than the truth. In fact, the truth, as strange as it may be, was the most believable answer to what we were doing a couple of hours from home, with a stolen credit card and a Spirit Board in a Riverboat Casino hotel room.
“I can explain,” I said, holding my hand out to forestall any ill-conceived explanations that Tara or G. might make.
“You had better,” said my grandmother.
“We were trying to contact Matthew’s ghost,” I said, watching her expression for any sign that she was going to cart me off to the looney bin. Somehow, I didn’t think that would be her reaction though.
She took a short, deep breath in through her nose, exhaled and said, “And what makes you think you’d get a response?”
“Because we did it before,” I answered.
“On accident,” Tara added.
She pursed her lips and her eyes got sharp and shiny. “I see. And why on earth would you come all the way up here to do something like that? Surely there are cheaper hotels closer to home.”
“When we contacted Matthew’s ghost the first time, he warned us about Orla.”
“And Orla is a Celtic name that means ‘golden queen’,” said Tara, getting ready to gush on. She opened her mouth to continue before I could stop her, but Gram held a hand up.
“And you thought this boat, the Golden Queen, was the place that Matthew warned you about?”
“Well, we did look for a person, first,” said G. speaking up for the first time.
I nodded. “But then Tara overheard Myrtle talking about this place, and we thought it was too big a coincidence to dismiss.”
Gram came the rest of the way into the room and took a seat on the bed closest to the door. She slumped a little bit, as if she were very tired. There was a long pause while she rubbed her face and forehead. Then she said, her voice soft, “Did it work?”
“No,” I said, suddenly sad. “Not even close.”
“Good. Using a Spirit Board in a place like this – a place full of unsavory feelings and emotions, is just asking for trouble. The kind of trouble you are ill-equipped to do anything about. Promise me that you all will not try something like this again until—”
“Until?” said Tara.
“Until I can show you a little bit about how to protect yourselves.”
I blinked. I turned to look at Tara and G., and they were even more surprised than I was.
“Yes, ma’am,” said G. as Tara and I murmured the same.
“I’m sorry, Gram.”
Gram stood. “You think you are sorry now, but you’ll be even sorrier tomorrow when you’re doing those extra chores I’ve been putting off.”
I almost smiled in spite of myself; I knew Gram could be very strict when she wanted to, and I was likely going to be exhausted by dinnertime tomorrow.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Can Tara still spend the night? That’s where she told her mom she would be.”
Gram looked at Tara. “On one condition – Tara must never tell her parents that I offered to show her the proper way to use the Spirit Board. I know this isn’t Salem, Massachusetts, but sometimes people can be quite nervous and twitchy about things like that.”
“I promise,” said Tara.
“Well, let’s get checked out of this hotel,” said Gram, waving for me to lead the way. “I’d like to be back home and in my bed by midnight. Your Gramps misses me, you know.” She winked; the mood dissipated somewhat and we laughed.
34. SAM
The rave was freaking awesome. The bass line was thumping and people were feeling it – moving, writhing, gyrating to the music like they were under some sort of trance. And obviously, some of them were high, but all in all, the crowd seemed to be largely made up of dancers who really were all about the dance.
Lights flashed on the ceiling in time to the music and there was a large light show surrounding the stage. The owl face that was hanging on the wall behind me lit up like some sort of clockwork beast one moment, then like a laser-light show the next. I couldn’t quite figure out how they were doing it, but at the top of every hour, the owl chimed and hooted like a grandfather clock made from a pipe organ, and its eyes and mouth opened and closed to mark the time. The crowd went nuts whenever this happened, overcome with euphoria with each additional hour. When it hit midnight, we gave the ball drop at Times Square a run for its money. The energy output from the crowd was infectious. I found myself cheering along with them on the final chime.
At that moment, Lily, still underdressed and sexy as hell, showed up at the door to the DJ booth with some glowing concoction in one hand and a beer in the other. “A midnight toast!” she said to me over the roar of the crowd.
“No thanks,” I said, waving away the offer of the glowing drink. “I don’t drink when I spin.”
She wouldn’t take no for an answer though and pushed the drink into my hand. “It’s tradition. And if that reason doesn’t work for you, then think of it as a condition of employment.”
I stared at the drink for one long second and then did a mental shrug. One drink wouldn’t kill me, and if it was a choice between drinking plus a thousand dollars or not drinking plus zero dollars, then I guess I was gonna chug the thing.
“Bomb’s away!” she said, giving me a cat-ate-the-canary grin.
I raised my glass in a toast and tossed back the concoction.
It wasn’t bad as far as alcohol goes – kind of sweet and sour at the same time, with the under bite of something warm and sharp going down my throat.
“Want another one?” she asked me, looking at the empty cup I was handing back to her.
“Not right now,” I said. “Thanks, though.”
“You will!” she shrugged off the plastic cup, laughed, and melted away into the darkness beyond the booth. I thought that was a strange response but tossed the now empty cup onto the back table and put my headphones back on. The track was going to be up soon, and I needed to line up the next one.
The songs began to blur together which was one of the reasons I had vowed not to drink when I spun. Luckily I had set up most of my stuff in advance so that I didn’t have to scratch my head and wonder what to play next – sometimes it paid to be organized. I know, I know, if only I could manage to put the same talents to use on housework.
Finally it was time for the owl to strik
e 3:00 a.m., the signal for the last song of the night. I had been holding back the Gracie Slick dubstep I had put together, waiting for the right moment, and something told me it was now or never. I looked up at the clock – only a couple of minutes left. I decided to lead in with sixty seconds to go. Some of the kids in the crowd would know the song, some would wonder what the heck I was up to. But before it was over, I was pretty sure they’d be singing along.
“Witching hour’s almost upon us,” said Lily, sliding up beside me, out of the darkness.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Never mind. I hope you have something special planned for the last song of the night. The smoke bomb is about to drop, and I really want to be impressed.”
I noticed that her lips were very shiny and red. I tried very hard not to compare their shininess to the red vinyl hearts, but I failed my saving throw for a split second. I know she noticed, and what really made me crazy was that I knew she wanted me to look.
“What’s a smoke bomb?” I asked, feeling even more blurry than I was a few minutes ago. What was in that drink?
“You’ll see,” her eyes gleamed.
I glanced at the clock again and had to try hard to focus on the bright red numbers. It was time to spin my version of “White Rabbit” by Gracie Slick. The long cool guitar notes fluttered over the heads of the crowd with a sort of hypnotic quality; not hard since many of them were halfway there from recreational substances already. Gracie’s voice, husky and daring, soared through the speakers, and a sudden cheer went up in the crowd. Dancers everywhere raised their hands and began to sway, singing along with the lyrics. At exactly 3:00 a.m., the dubstep kicked in and the cheering crescendoed into a kind of frenzied cacophony.
And then I saw what the smoke bomb was – a ball descended from the ceiling, itself a marvel of gears, levers and sparkling LED lights, and instead of steam coming out of the pipes, musky patchouli and vanilla incense billowed out in smoky streams.
A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 Page 11