Page 3 of Of Monsters Of Kings

I eased back a step, and the third man’s gaze snapped in my direction. I stared at his shoulder instead of meeting his eyes. When he didn’t speak, I dared to retreat another step.

The two others twisted to follow his stare.

I stopped moving and kept my gaze lowered. “I work here.”

“Worked,” stated the third. “Why aren’t you gone?”

I no longer felt in the mood to make animal comparisons, but this man might’ve eaten a sand cat when young. He had a caged speed about him and enough conventional beauty to match the others. Yet who would win in a fight between them? I couldn’t say.

I didn’t care to find out.

As the trio observed me, I dared to steal a peek and discovered their faces shared a quality, as if—impossibly—they might be brothers despite the glaring differences in their physiques. Each man possessed the same owlish hunch in the set of his shoulders. Their eerie stillness suggested that they preyed on small, vulnerable critters from midnight perches—and rather enjoyed doing so.

I was the small critter. “I didn’t know I was meant to be gone.”

“You are,” said Stag.

Was I the only employee here? Maggie left for the bank a while ago. I peered up at the level two and three landings but couldn’t spot any cleaning carts. If I stopped to think, all three cleaning carts, along with the two spares, had been parked in the laundry bay.

The other cleaners left without warning me. But did they put their carts away, as well as mine, before fleeing? Surely not.

Goodness, parts of this didn’t make sense.

I shivered under the awfulness of the trio’s continued regard. No one had ever inspired the feeling of a gaping void in me. How terrible. “S-shall I call Frank for you?”

“Frank?” grunted Ox.

Everyone knew Frank. Vitale had one hotel. Owning that hotel was a big deal.

I answered anyway. “The owner.”

Stag said, “Not necessary.”

Some of the fear freezing me melted—enough that I recalled how difficult my life would become if the hotel closed. Today was also payday, and Frank hadn’t shown up. I’d begun to suspect he wouldn’t come. Mother and I couldn’t see out a week without that pay.

Men in three, I steer clear of thee.

Yet I couldn’t.

I gripped my gray apron. “Will there be a new owner?”

They’d started to talk in a foreign language, but interrupted by my question, the three regained their owlish demeanor and focused on me again. They appeared to have forgotten I existed.

Mother would scold me to bones for not escaping when I’d had the chance.

“The hotel is no longer possible,” Sand Cat said after a lull.

“No longer possible,” I mouthed, then asked, “Shut for good?”

The three men didn’t answer, talking again in their guttural, clipped dialect. I’d never heard another language. Too many generations had passed in our walled cities, and myriad languages had whittled to one, though accents varied from city to city. Unless a person wanted to learn dead, useless words—which seemed a luxury to me and a waste of daylight hours—then everyone just knew the single dialect.

“Is Hotel Vitale closed for good?” I interrupted them again, wincing that my poverty had the power to drive me to such foolishness. But space in the city was a precious commodity. If the hotel shut, then another business would open here.

The feeling of a gaping void returned, and the furrow between Ox’s brows spoke of his irritation. “Not our concern. This place is not possible. Begone.”

That was as dismissed as a person could get. I shouldn’t push them. I’d be a total idiot to keep pestering a skeleton crew past this point.

I’d also be an idiot to return home with unanswered questions that tomorrow’s desperation would drive me back here to ask. I couldn’t believe Frank had sold up, gone under, or become embroiled with the wrong skull and never breathed a word.

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