Dead and Dusted by Lily Webb (most recommended books .TXT) 📗

had the chance to stop me. With the grate safely closed and the lift descending — albeit painfully slowly — to the ground floor, I let out a long, exasperated sigh along with all the tension I’d been holding. I had to remind myself that this wasn’t the end of the world, and that as awkward as the run-in with Lox and Keez had been for Mr. Marth’s security, it didn’t mean that I’d doomed the entire event to failure.

“H-human girl?” a voice squeaked from below, mercifully pulling me out of my emotional downward spiral. I glanced down to find Keez staring up at me with her eerie yellow cat eyes. She rubbed her blue-haired head with her razor-sharp claws and grumbled, “Where is Keez? Imp not feel good. Was attacked!”

“I know, Keez. Believe me, I know,” I groaned. “Just go back to sleep for a bit. Save your energy for… Well, for whatever it is you do.”

“Yes. Keez tired. So tired. Keez sleep,” she sighed and wilted without waking her brother, much to my delight. But when I arrived on the ground floor and slid open the elevator’s grate to find several new guests waiting for me, my delight deflated instantly.

Blair caught sight of the imps in my hand, gasped, and clapped a hand over her mouth while a warlock I didn’t recognize lifted the camera dangling from his neck and snapped a picture. “This ought to make for a good front page!” he laughed and snapped another picture while I stood stunned like a vampire caught in the daylight.

“Delete those immediately, Kade,” Thorn barked at the presumptuous paparazzi as if he knew the photographer personally. They looked to be around the same age, so maybe they’d gone to school together or something? Regardless, I breathed a sigh of relief when Thorn stepped in front of the lens to shield me and crossed his arms over his chest.

Kade pushed his glasses up his nose and stared down at the screen on the back of the camera as he admired his work. “Are you kidding? These are golden!” he cackled.

“I mean it, Kade! Delete them or you can turn right back around and leave.”

“All right, all right. I see you’re still a buzzkill,” Kade grumbled as he clicked the delete button twice. He turned the screen to face Thorn and scrolled through the gallery to prove he’d really deleted them. “There, they’re gone. Happy now?”

“Never been happier,” Thorn said with a flat expression.

Aunt Blair dashed to my side to take the imps from me while they argued. “Selena? What on Earth is going on?”

“Long story short, our favorite pair of imps broke into Mr. Marth’s room and attacked one of his guards when they got caught.”

“Oh, for Lilith’s sake,” Blair groaned. She lifted the imps up to check them out. “Are they okay?”

“As far as I know. The guard said he just stunned them. I’m sure they’ll bounce back faster than any of us would like.”

“No doubt,” Blair said and reached into her robes for her wand. She aimed it at the imps, muttered “Evancesco,” and the twins vanished with a pop. “Brady must be thrilled,” she groaned.

“More than you know. He’s not happy about Aron’s room being right next door to Mr. Marth’s. That’s actually why I came back down. He’s demanding we move Aron, said it was in the contract.”

“I take it that means Aron couldn’t help showing his beard?”

“Are you serious? The entire floor probably heard the imps screech when the guard stunned them.”

Blair chuckled. “Well, thankfully, this is an easy fix. We’ll have to shuffle the rooms around, but that’s nothing the inn’s magic can’t handle,” she said and pointed her wand’s tip upward. “Constituo,” she muttered and tucked her wand away while a sharp popping sound accompanied by shifting wood filled the foyer from upstairs. Satisfied, Blair straightened her robes and turned back to the small crowd of guests with a smile as the elevator climbed back up to the sixth floor. “It wouldn’t be a paranormal inn without a bit of magical mischief, now would it?”

“Right, that’s part of the appeal!” a man in a crisp, tailored suit said with a wide, toothy smile. His surprisingly muscular arms and salt-and-pepper crew cut gave him the look of someone who’d served in the military, and as soon as the observation hit me, I realized it could only be one person: Mayor Morgan Nash. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I expect a bit of hijinks in a haunt like this.”

A tall, rail-thin, and otherworldly beautiful woman standing beside the mayor sighed. “Then I can only imagine what other surprises are in store for us this weekend,” she said and shook her head, making her shining black hair that draped nearly to the floor sway like a field of wheat in the wind.

“Ah, Zadie, you’re always such an optimist!” Mayor Nash chided and clapped a hand on the high shoulder of her black suit jacket. She stared down at it in contempt until he pulled away. He smiled awkwardly at her, but Zadie rolled her eyes and brushed the spot the mayor touched like he might’ve left crumbs behind.

I didn’t have a clue who Zadie was, but in her crisp black capris and matching leather heels complete with gladiator straps that snaked around her ankles, she looked like a movie star ready to strut the red carpet at a premiere, not someone who’d spend a weekend at a local bed-and-breakfast.

“Well, this certainly wasn’t how I’d intended to introduce everyone, but here we are!” Blair said, trying desperately to save the situation, but not even her gift for gab could salvage it. She cleared her throat. “Everyone, this is my niece, Selena. You’ll be seeing a lot of her over the next couple of days. She and the rest of our staff will make sure you have everything you need.”

“Uh, hi,” I greeted the guests and waved uncomfortably at them.

“I sent Jadis to the