Her parents brought their luggage over to the elevator but Ada flinched and immediately headed to the stairs. “I’ll catch up with you, I’m on floor eleven. I need the exercise.” She shot Perry a ‘are you coming?’ look but Perry only shook her head. It would look weird if all of us decided to walk up eleven floors when the elevator was right there.
Though I wasn’t feeling much trepidation about this so-called demon on the sixth floor – after all, her parents were far scarier and relevant – Perry seemed to shudder and then resign herself. She caught me staring at her and attempted a reassuring smile that didn’t quite work.
We got into the elevator with her parents and watched the floor numbers as we slowly ascended. It was more than a tad awkward, squished in there with them. I could feel the animosity coming off of them, just fumes at first, then building to smoke of pure hatred.
At least, I thought the hate was from them. But when the elevator unexpectedly stopped at the sixth floor and I felt the feeling intensify, practically wrapping itself around my neck and choking me, I knew it hadn’t been coming from her parents.
It was coming from what was on the other side of the elevator doors.
It was waiting for me.
“Oh, what now?” her father said, jabbing his finger on the elevator button repeatedly. I could feel Perry glance at me in worry but I couldn’t take my eyes way from the door.
The doors slowly parted with a metallic groan.
At the end of the hallway opposite us was a tall, muscular figure, standing with its side to us, absolutely still. It was about seven feet tall, with cow-like horns on top of its head that nearly grazed the ceiling. It was naked, resembling a mixture of a human and a bull, all hard and sinewy and black as sin. I wasn’t sure if there was skin or short fur but it was so dark and dense that it felt like you were looking into something, rather than at something.
It deliberately turned its head until I was looking our way. White slits for eyes bore into my own. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
We were going to die.
I was going to die.
That’s all I knew and I knew it like I knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
You need answers.
I wasn’t sure if I thought it or the phrase just was plucked from the air. It was a voice with no voice.
You need to find the answers.
Start with your past.
“I thought this was a nice hotel,” Perry’s dad grumbled, his disgruntled tone bringing me back into reality. The beast at the end of the hall was still standing there, but black red blood began to flow from its bull nose, created a river of crimson tar that sluggishly moved down the hall toward us.
I could barely bring my eyes away from it to look at her father. He was jabbing the button again and for a moment I thought maybe he just needed to look up, maybe he needed to look up and he’d see it.
And then he did. He glanced right down the hall and his face never changed. He went back to the button, hitting it harder this time. To him, there was no beast, just a hotel that was getting on his nerves.
Now, the elevator doors finally began to close, shutting the creature and the blood from reaching us. But it didn’t erase the image from my mind. It didn’t take away that blanket of evil that I felt settle around my feet, like blackened dust.
I looked down at Perry, my mouth open slightly, trying to take in air, like I’d forgotten how to even breathe. She was dead still and staring at her mom.
Her mom had her hand to her chest, a look of utter horror on her face.
Daniel looked to her. “What’s wrong dear?”
Her mother slowly turned to look at him, blinking fast, her mouth opening and closing, trying to find the words. “You didn’t see…”
He frowned. “What? That the health code in this building probably isn’t up to par? Damn New Yorkers, always cutting corners. You remember that building we used to live on 32nd, right? My goodness, that was a cause for concern.”
Though it was hard to forget what I saw, I was watching her very closely now, as was Perry. She had seen something. She had seen it. The demon on the sixth floor.
I knew Perry must have been losing her shit inside her head. This was big fucking news, the fact that her mother saw the very supernatural thing that her daughter did. It meant so many things.
And yet, I was going to have to let Perry deal with that. I had other things I had to deal with. Mainly, the voice in my head that told me to find answers, to go back to the past. It was like everything was clicking into place, the satisfying snap of puzzle pieces being fit together.
I needed to go find my childhood home.
Then everything, everything, would make sense.
***
After Perry’s parents put their bags away in Ada’s room and got over the fact that she had to share a room with Maximus last night (naturally, Max would have his own room going forward), we all headed out to lunch like one big fucking happy family.
Understandably, Perry and her mother were on the quiet side, while Ada was overjoyed at my suggestion we hit up H&M. It’s not that I enjoyed shopping at a store that was catered to European metrosexuals with pre-pubescent chests, but I needed to get something.
Luckily, I found jeans that didn’t show off every curve of my dick nor taper into my toes and a few plain t-shirts that didn’t have a cat wearing sunglasses on it. If I hadn’t already seen a beast from Hell that morning, I would have sworn I was in Hell itself. Hell & Metrosexuals, that’s what H&M stood for, right?
It was hard to keep my mood up, however, because every single time I caught my reflection, whether it be in the changing room mirror or the gleam of the floors or the glass on the buildings, I saw the same fucking thing.
My face, frozen in a scream, eyes open in horror. It got to be so unnerving that I started flinching every time I saw a reflective object.
“What’s wrong?” Perry asked as we strolled down Fifth Avenue, Ada scampering into every single high-end designer store. She grabbed my hand and held it tight, pulling me back a bit. Maximus was up ahead, talking to her father, while Ada was trying to convince her mom of something.
I ran my tongue over the tip of my teeth. “Well, I think I might be going crazy.”
“You’re not,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I saw the beast too. And you know what, I think so did my mom. She’s acting like she hasn’t, but I know it, I know it.”
I nodded. “Yeah I picked up on that. But that isn’t why I think I’m going crazy.”
Her brows furrowed. “That isn’t? Dex, I’m pretty sure we just saw Satan on the sixth floor. What else could be more than that?”
I cleared my throat. “Uh, well, every time I see my reflection, it’s not matching up with my face.” Her frown deepened. “It’s screaming,” I explained. “And earlier, this morning when I was in the bathroom, it was grinning at me, like it was about to fucking tear my head off and piss in it.”
“When you say it, you mean…”
“Me. My reflection is me and yet it has a mind of its own.”
Her grip on my hand tightened and she sucked in her lip for a moment. “That isn’t good.”
“No shit. Hence the main reason why I think I’m going crazy.”
She exhaled and looked down the sidewalk at Maximus who was getting lost in the crowd. “We should let him know. Maybe it means something.”
I shrugged, kind of annoyed that she would be going to him for counsel. I hated thinking that the man knew some shit that I didn’t. “I don’t know. But I do think I know what will help.” She looked at me expectantly and I continued. “I think we need to find the house I grew up in. Where Pippa was me and Michael’s nanny. Where we lived before my father fucked off.”
Perry didn’t say anything. For a second I thought maybe she didn’t hear me but she carefully said, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“What’s a good idea?” Ada’s voice interrupted us.