Through the glass in the booth, Brendan saw a man stepping into a baggy rubber suit. A tube connected a gas mask to a tank on his back. A zipper ran from neck to crotch, and strips of tar-proofing settled over the gaps between the zipper’s teeth.
After securing the suit, the man exited the booth. Two more remained behind, watching intently. Their hands hovered over a gray control board with flashing lights and brightly-colored knobs.
The man in his suit approached, and Brendan held his arms up. Gloved fingers poked and prodded, and Brendan waited. These people were nowhere near as careful as Logan. They spent no time inspecting any clothes or possessions. They even came out of their booth to inspect rather than sending a camera as Logan always did.
And yet, as far as Brendan could tell, they hadn’t allowed any tar inside.
How long had the hotel survived with such sloppy procedures? How many visitors had it seen? Of course, the questions were no more than idle curiosity. If the Hotel Shalom was clean now and Brendan slept well tonight, he didn’t care if they were the first customers at a facility with no experience defending its guests from the tar. Safety was safety.
Satisfied the visitors carried no tar, the man in the rubber suit waved them on. A slit opened in the next wall, and the three of them passed through. Now they stood in a hotel lobby. The light was brighter in here. Whoever ran the place had either worked hard to restore the decor inside, or the destruction common across the rest of the world had missed the Hotel Shalom. A smattering of couches and colorful rugs adorned the tiled floor, and twinkling chandeliers hung overhead. A long window permitted a view of the local scenery, dead and decaying though it was.
Even as the low buzz of suspicion remained in the back of Brendan’s mind, he had to admit he was impressed. Inside this lobby, he could almost believe the world outside was not a ruined, desolate place.
“Hello, and welcome to the Hotel Shalom,” said a warm voice.
They turned. Behind the front desk stood a woman with bright red hair tumbling down her shoulders in elegant curls. She wore a dark purple robe with the hood thrown back. Her eyes sparkled with joy.
“Shalom,” Samson said with a quirk of his eyebrow.
The woman smiled. “Shalom means peace. It means restoration. It means everything is the way it was always supposed to be.”
Brendan sniffed derisively, and as soon as he did, those sparkling eyes landed on him.
“Don’t you want a place like that?”
“Sure,” Brendan said. “But I’m not holding my breath for it.”
“Well, you’ve found it,” said the woman.
“This place,” Brendan said, waving his hand around the lobby. “This is how the world is supposed to be?”
The woman shrugged. “As close as we could make it.”
Brendan nodded at the window. “A little risky leaving part of your building with no tar-proofing. Nice to have a view, I guess, but I can’t say it makes me feel safe. Especially in your little inspection place at the entry. One crack, and you're not secure anymore.”
“You are not the first to ask such questions,” the woman said. “For a brief time, the government offered transparent sealant to organizations such as ours, though it proved too expensive for mass-production. We are one of the few hotels in the world blessed to offer our guests safe windows—or, as we prefer to call them, Shalom Windows.”
“This really is a special place, isn’t it?” Krystal said without a hint of irony.
The woman beamed. “Consider us an oasis in a desert of chaos and death. Here, within these walls, shalom springs bright and clear.”
Brendan folded his arms. “With a simple payment of enough coin, right?”
The smile grew wider. The eyes sparkled brighter. “If you are here, I believe you already have the payment we require.”
Krystal held Ernest’s coin in front of her, staring at its polished surface, then walked to the woman and placed it on the counter. The woman took the coin, held it up in the light, and then dropped it in a pocket inside her robe.
“That’s it?” Krystal asked. “That’s all you need?”
“We do not ask much,” said the woman. “The Hotel Shalom is our ministry. It is payment enough to tear a corner off the darkness that covers this world.”
Brendan was ready to fire back, but Samson placed a hand on his chest.
“Fine,” said the gray-haired man. “Can we have a room now?”
The woman removed a key from the wall behind her. “Room 134. Follow the hallway to the end. It will be on the left side.”
She gave Brendan another smile, made a point to catch his eye, and then let them pass.
6
Their room was almost as nice as the lobby, a far cry from what passed for lodging in Logan’s hotel. Two king-sized beds waited for them, each with clean sheets, and not a speck of dust in sight. A nightstand with a lamp sat nestled between the beds. The carpet bore the marks of a recent vacuum. The bathroom smelled of cleaning supplies and bleach.
“Look at this!” Krystal said. She hopped onto a bed and ran her hand along the sheets. “I could get used to this.”
“I don’t like it,” Brendan said.
“You don’t like anything. Is it that hard to believe there's something good left in the world?”
“Yeah. It is.”
And that was the thing. The room was too good to be true. Brendan had seen his share of big promises in this new, tar-infested world. They’d all been empty, if not outright deceptive. And the Hotel Shalom made some big promises. Promises of safety, of comfort, and of restoration in the face of chaos and death. Even if Ernest and the Hotel Shalom’s owners meant well, they weren’t peddling anything practical or sustainable.
“You’re no fun,” Krystal said, and flopped back onto the bed. “Our roommate is a two-thousand-year-old wizard who can make gasoline out of thin air. It'll be fine.”
“We won’t let our guard down,” Samson said, joining the conversation after pacing about the room, checking every crease and corner for signs of foul play. “We will take turns standing watch while the others sleep.”
“See?” Krystal said. “We’d be doing the exact same thing if we camped in the car tonight. But when we’re not keeping watch, we get to sleep in actual beds.”
She was right. Whether they slept in the hotel or on the side of the road, they could not let their guards down. It would be nice to sleep on a bed that wasn’t caked in dirt and dust. If Brendan was honest with himself, the most inviting sight in all of the Hotel Shalom was the bright white of the bedsheets.
But that wouldn't matter if the Hotel Shalom wasn’t what it seemed. If this was a trap, they’d walked right into it, clean sheets or not.
7
Brendan had to admit—it was nice to lie in a clean bed. All the stress and fear of the past few days came to a head, pressing him into sheets smelling of soap and fabric softener. Sleep claimed him instantly.
And then Samson shook him awake. Brendan felt like he’d only been out a few seconds, but he’d gotten more rest than he ever did in Logan’s dorms. Samson said nothing as Brendan rolled out of bed. He only jerked a thumb toward the door where he’d been keeping watch: Your turn.
Brendan stretched as he crossed the room, rolling the stiff muscles and aching joints that had made their presence known after he lay still for so long. Krystal remained fast asleep, sprawled across the king-sized bed. She looked so carefree, unlike Samson. Even in slumber, the old wizard seemed prepared to battle an army.
Brendan stepped into the hallway outside their room. It was quiet, but that made sense. The sun had set several hours ago. How many people were staying here, anyway? Brendan had seen no one in the lobby, though that didn’t mean anything. The three of them had arrived well after sundown—likely making them the last to sign in by a long shot.
Still, the quiet was eerie. Even the most unev
entful nights at Logan’s were louder than this. Muttered conversation, the metallic clink of weapon maintenance, and late-night scuffles all wove together in a tapestry of noise.
But in the hallways of the Hotel Shalom? Perfect silence.
Were they the only guests there?
Was this all just a trap?
Brendan shook his head. Maybe Krystal was right. Maybe some bastions of goodness had survived the tar, and maybe the Hotel Shalom was one such bastion. Still, it was safer not to trust. Krystal would call that philosophy a sad defense mechanism, but Brendan didn’t have a problem with defense mechanisms. Not in a world like this.
Motion caught Brendan’s eye outside the window—oops, the Shalom Window. All thoughts of defense mechanisms and how much good remained in the world gave way to cold, hard survival instincts.
Brendan crept down the hallway, craning his neck as he edged along. The motion repeated itself, and he recognized it instantly—flashlights.
Here on the third floor, he could see plenty through the window: Ragged trees tearing at a sky lit by pinprick stars. A handful of trails converging on the Hotel Shalom from the surrounding woods. Flashlight beams waving about in furtive activity.
Furtive activity centered on Samson’s car.
Brendan glanced at the room where Samson and Krystal slept. He didn’t want to leave them alone, but depending on these people’s plan for Samson’s car, it wouldn’t matter how safe the room was. If someone stole or destroyed Samson’s car, they’d have to travel the rest of the way on foot. Brendan couldn’t say he relished that scenario.
He stared at the bedroom a little longer before making his decision. He had to go, now. As he rushed down a nearby staircase, practically leaping from one landing to the next, he wondered if he should have woken Samson—but there was no time for that now.
Brendan burst into the hotel lobby. He sprinted across the floor, feet alternating between muted thumps and high slaps as he went from ornate rug to tile and back to rug again. The woman at the check-in desk watched him with mild interest but said nothing.
The guards didn’t force Brendan to wait in the decontamination station as they had when he entered the Hotel Shalom. If the tar had gotten to him somehow, they wouldn’t care if he smuggled it out of the hotel. The guard behind the booth waved him on, pressing an unseen button and opening a door in the tar-proofing.
The night air cooled his skin. Beads of sweat on his neck made him shiver as he scanned the area for Samson’s car.
It didn’t take him long. Discreet or not, the flashlights were the only lights outside the Hotel Shalom, making them easy to pick out in the dark. Five shadowy figures with flashlights huddled around the car, all murmuring to each other—possibly quibbling over how much they could strip for salvage before attracting unwanted attention.
They’d taken too long.
“Hey!” Brendan shouted. He pulled his blaster from his back pocket. The sound of the weapon drawing bio-power joined the chorus of wind and voices.
The shadows stiffened. One of them whirled and lifted its flashlight. The beam hit Brendan in the face, and for a second he saw only the white glow. He covered his eyes and rushed into the wash of light, not wanting to lose his targets.
By the time he reached the car, the shadows had disappeared. Brendan considered chasing them down, but as the adrenaline left his veins, he realized it wasn’t worth it. He only wanted to protect the car, and he’d done that. The shadows knew Samson’s car wasn’t the easy target they’d expected.
He leaned against the trunk. His heart resumed its regular pace, but each beat still thudded hard enough that he felt the impact in his throat.
As he sat, his eyes settled on a shape at the edge of the trees. At first, he assumed it was just an oddly shaped shadow, but the more he stared, the more his curiosity grew. Slowly, Brendan approached the dark shape. As he walked, the moon appeared from behind a cloud.
And then he realized the Hotel Shalom truly was too good to be true.
The fresh moonlight revealed a shape Brendan had seen only a few hours ago—a rusty bio-powered car belching smoke on the side of the highway. He’d seen Ernest drive it away, too, but he must’ve circled back and hidden it here.
But why?
Krystal might have been able to come up with an innocent explanation, but Brendan couldn’t picture anything besides Ernest lying in wait for travelers, loosening just the right pieces of his car to belch smoke and incite pity, and then promising his weary rescuers a safe night of sleep in the Hotel Shalom.
Movement flickered in the corner of Brendan’s eye. It only happened for a moment, but Brendan had salvaged enough dimly lit warehouses to sense people watching him.
Was it one of the punks who’d been lurking around Samson’s car? No flashlight this time, but maybe they’d learned their lesson. They knew to take him seriously.
Brendan whirled just as a figure stepped from behind a tree, arm raised. The silhouetted hand gripped a small weapon whose nature Brendan didn’t care to learn.
He processed the image and its implications in a moment.
In that same moment, he sent his mod flying across the highway to the shadow.
He made contact, sensed vibrations traveling along the elongated mod and into his flesh. Something cracked in the figure’s wrist, and the weapon dropped to the ground. Now Brendan gripped the shadow’s arm and retracted his mod to its normal length. He lifted as he did, catapulting the figure into the air and over Brendan’s head. A yelp, high and afraid, echoed in the night. The shadow was human after all.
Another figure melted out of the dark a few feet from Brendan. It held one arm up, and the moonlight glinted on a short, curved blade. Brendan buried a knee in the shadow’s midsection, listening with satisfaction as the air left its lungs in a heavy cough. He brought his mod down on the shadow’s head like a hammer. It fell and did not move.
Brendan ran.
He had to warn Samson and Krystal. Was he already too late? What did these people want?
He only knew the next step: Get back inside, and fast.
Gravel spat behind his feet with every frantic pace. The Hotel Shalom loomed ahead of him. The massive shape swallowed more stars as he drew closer. He came to a stop where he remembered the door opening in the tar-proofing, but no one responded this time.
He panted in front of the looming wall of tar-proofing, waiting for something to happen. It was all he could do. He’d never break in. Not to a place like this. He pounded on the semi-solid barrier, but why would anyone pay attention? Whoever lured him into the Hotel Shalom probably preferred him separated from his companions.
He’d opened his mouth for a shout when a needle of pain pricked his neck. He lifted a hand to the sensation and touched a syringe.
Chemicals entered Brendan’s bloodstream, and the stars that hadn’t been blotted out by the Hotel Shalom winked out in a flood of darkness.
8
Brendan awoke with a start. His arms stretched overhead, shoulders dislocating with stress. A thick cord bound his wrists and dragged him along a rough surface. He craned his head around, trying to get an idea of his surroundings.
“Please don’t struggle,” said a voice somewhere up ahead. “I don’t want to give you another sedative. We’re running low.”
Brendan strained against the bindings, engaging every circuit in his mod to break their hold.
“That won’t work,” said the voice. “Even the strongest mod can’t snap this alloy. Just relax. We don’t have much farther to go.”
The voice was right. Whatever held his hands together was strong. It didn’t budge when he pulled against it.
As his senses returned, Brendan saw he was being dragged down a hallway in the Hotel Shalom. He recognized the red and yellow carpeting as the rough surface beneath him. Now that his face lay inches away, he smelled cigarettes and urine and must. He saw stains in the c
arpet and warping in the floorboards. Doors to various rooms slid past as his captor dragged him farther. How many of them held inhabitants unaware of the situation outside? Or were Brendan, Samson, and Krystal the only guests?
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“To the chapel.”
Brendan hadn’t expected a reply, at least not one so direct.
“What’s in the chapel?”
Brendan’s captor turned around. It was the woman who’d greeted them at the check-in desk. Her hair had fallen in front of her face, and her makeup streaked where she’d begun to sweat. Her robe, rumpled and dusty, hung awkwardly off her body. She’d hiked it over her legs, which weren’t legs at all. Dozens of mods, each only a half-inch in circumference and coming to a point at the end, skittered along the floor in a multitude of short, clicking strides. It all added up to a steady, gliding pace which Brendan was helpless to resist.
The woman smiled through sweaty hair. Her eyes sparkled over black rivers of mascara.
“It is where you will meet Asmodeus.”
9
The woman dragged him to the end of the hallway and paused to fish in her pocket. After a few seconds, she withdrew a jingling key chain. With one hand, she fumbled with the keys, while the other continued gripping Brendan’s bindings. She found the key, and with a heavy-sounding click, she unlocked the door in front of them.
Her skittering insectile mods resumed their clicking dance, and she was once again dragging Brendan, now through the open door. The ceiling loomed higher here than in the hallway, with ornately carved stonework and elaborate light fixtures. The floor beneath him was tiled, though cracked throughout.
With a grunt, the woman hoisted him onto a wooden chair. Brendan smelled her sweat as she leaned over him and tied him in place.
“I’m sorry about this,” she murmured in the same tone she might have used if she’d forgotten to give his room fresh towels. “It’s just that it’s better if you don’t run.”
She finished tying a knot behind the chair, then knelt at his feet, placing her hands on his knees. She flashed him a smile through sweaty bangs and smudged makeup. Exhaustion hid in that smile, along with a little sadness.
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