Entry 5 - The Wizards at the Grinning Moon

When my next shift started, I was admittedly still exhausted from the night and morning before. Billy was watching the news, the remote in his mouth while his eyes were trained on the television. Dolly was sitting on the counter beside the small chest mimic. He was making sure to keep a healthy distance from its open jaws as the mimic devoured a bag of jerky, plastic and all, violently tearing it apart with loud, garbling bites.

To top off my exhaustion, I was starting to feel unwell. A scratching cough had started to form in the back of my throat, and I ached – although I wasn’t sure if that was from getting knocked around the night before or due to sickness.

The ragdoll's metallic face turned toward me as I entered the room, reaching for a pen and scribbling on a sticky note. “About time; I was worried you were still asleep. How are you feeling?”

I picked up the note as I walked around the desk, reading it to myself. Once I’d stepped through the storage closet, I glanced at Dolly. “Not amazing. Last night was rough. How are things down here?”

Dolly shrugged and motioned toward the mimic, writing. “I feel more like a babysitter than a front desk worker at this point.”

“You’d be surprised how one in the same the two are.” I chuckled, stamping in for the evening. “Got any plans tonight?”

He shook his head and wrote, “Boss went home, and I have nothing on my plate.”

“Want to play a board game?” I asked. “I checked the ledger last night; we don’t have any check-ins, so it’s going to be slow.”

Dolly nodded immediately.

I was grateful for the company and the distraction. Everything that had happened was buzzing about my mind like an insect trying to free itself from a shut paper bag. Mando has asked me not to talk about it, but I wanted to.

Dolly had hopped down from the desk, making his way into the storage room to pick out a board game. He returned a few moments later with a Nultock favorite, a board game called Apotheosis.

The rules of the game were relatively simple, and I’ll do what I can to explain them here for people unfamiliar.

It was essentially a guessing game with extra steps. A screen was placed between the players, and they set up their individual boards with ritual sites. Each site was located across multiple squares on a grid marked 1-32 horizontally and vertically. Both players' boards were split into three parts.

When the game starts, players pick six ritual sites from twenty different preset models. Different sets of ritual sites had to be picked to fulfill a specific ritual, which the players selected at the start of the match. The goal of the game was to figure out what ritual the other player was doing. Since every ritual site had a different shape on the board, you could figure out what ritual was being done by finding the various encampments. Then you had to select an order in which they were supposed to be used to name whatever ritual your opponent was doing. Whoever figured out what the other was up to first won the game, and you would spend each turn listing a pair of numbers on your enemy’s board to find their ritual sites.

What made the game popular was that every individual ritual was listed on a sheet in front of the player, of which there were forty-eight. This meant that in the mid to late game, players were often trying to guess rituals with the information they had gathered. But it took a turn to guess the ritual your enemy was performing. So guessing the wrong ritual essentially gave your opponent a free turn to guess your sites or their location. Likewise, trickery was often in play. Because you only had to have one ritual site in each section of the board, players would lump sites together in different directions to attempt to trick the enemy player into guessing incorrectly.

Dolly and I often played this game together in our spare time, and not to pat myself too much on the back but I felt like I was pretty good at it. Of course, Dolly was too. The two of us would play for hours when we were at the desk together. Sometimes we even played outside of work.

I pulled out a small folding table from storage for us to use, setting it behind the desk.

While we set up for our game, Billy called from the lobby, complaint rife in his voice. “Jhin, the television keeps changing channels on its own.”

Dolly and I exchanged glances. I rolled my eyes. “You’ll have to deal with it for now.”

“How is that even happening?” He complained, tossing the remote across the room and sending it clattering across the wooden floor.

“Well, now you can’t change it back, genius.” I remarked, “Another guest probably just has a paired remote in one of the rooms above the lobby.”

Billy grumbled something under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Can you get the remote for me?” He muttered.

“No, you can wait for our game to be over.”

“God, please no. The channel landed on some stupid reality show called Pleasure Flesh Island. I do not want to listen to a bunch of women screeching about the flesh amalgamations they want to sleep with.”

I shrugged, “Shouldn’t have thrown the remote. Ready, Dolly?”

Dolly wrote on his notepad, “I go first this time?”

“Give it your best shot.” I looked down at my board and the various ritual sites I’d placed.

While the two of us played, Billy continued to whinge and moan from the lobby. Thankfully Dolly and I were fairly used to this and just ignored him, taking turns guessing squares. I picked up on Dolly’s strategy rather quickly this game, which actually felt pretty good. He was using multiple large ritual sites clumped together to make guessing the ritual harder.

On the other hand, he also found two of my sites immediately and was quick to pin down their shape by guessing the surrounding squares they occupied based on his first hit. It was shaping up to be a close game when I heard the entryway door slide open.

I turned to glance at the cameras. Someone was approaching the desk, so I quickly moved away from the board and put up a finger to let Dolly know I’d need a moment.

A man came hurrying to the desk, his white beard standing out against his brown skin. He wore red and gold robes covered in ornate jewelry and gemstones, and in one hand he carried a leather-bound tome of some sort with a gleaming, gold spine. On his head he wore a pointed, wide-brimmed hat. What struck me as odd about the hat was the fact that the creases on the point looked almost akin to a face, mouth and all. In fact, I swear it grinned at me as he approached. Like his robes, the hat was red and gold. Despite the long beard, he didn’t look to be that old, maybe in his thirties at most.

“Young man!” He barked, “I have a question for you.”

I stared at him for a moment before I replied. “Do you need a room?”

“No, no!” The man raised a hand, motioning to the surrounding building. “But I was wondering if your fine establishment could help me with something!”

It was then that a new voice joined the conversation. Raspy, a little deeper. The creases on the man’s hat moved with each word, and I realized the hat itself was speaking to me. “Ask him about the briefcase already, you dolt.”

“Silence, imbecile!” The man hissed, eyes raising to glare at the hat before returning to meet my gaze. “Apologies, he’s a bit impatient today.”

My eyes remained on the talking hat. All I could do was manage a “What?”

“What, what?” The hat asked back, “You got a problem?”

I shook my head, putting a hand to my eyes and sighing. “You don’t need a room, so are you here to schedule an event or something or…”

“No, no!” The man motioned toward me. “Forgive me, we must introduce ourselves. I am the fantastical Perizo! Wizard and magician extraordinaire! Half-elf, half-human, all magical! My companion atop my head is the talking hat Ratbag!”

The name Ratbag almost made me laugh, although the hat didn’t seem so amused.

“Smirk all you want, desk boy. One inch of my fabric holds more power than you could ever dream.” Ratbag growled. It would’ve been ominous if Perizo didn’t immediately smack the hat with his book, telling him to shut up.

“Apologies.” I said, “I’ve never heard of someone with that sort of name.”

“He was named by a famous idol from far, far away. I’ve rubbed shoulders with some very famous people!” Perizo grinned.

Ratbag muttered, “At the time he was performing a magic trick where he’d pull a rat out of me.”

“Miss Laiah was kind enough to offer a name.” Perizo shot back, “Don’t you forget it. Listen here, Jhin. A spirit should have shown up here with a briefcase not too long ago. I was wondering if you knew what room he was in. I wanted to speak to him.”

There was a glint in his eye as he asked the question. My mind reeled, remembering the spirit with the glasses that had paid for his room with a strange briefcase. Nyx’s warning reverberated in the back of my head.

Dolly tugged at my sleeve. I ignored him for a moment, debating on how to respond. Skeptically, I folded my arms and decided to play dumb. “What spirit?”

“Well, we know he was here. My compatriot saw him walk up to the door.” He waved the tome he held around emphatically. “He wears glasses and looks like a silhouette.”

“I must not have been working,” I said.

“Really? Because she also saw you.” Perizo frowned.

Dolly gripped my sleeve harder now, pulling on the cuff of my uniform. I glanced down at him. He was holding a sticky note up; it was at a perfect angle so the man in front of me couldn’t read it.

“He knew your name before you said anything.”

I realized Dolly was right. Our uniforms here didn’t have name tags, and the man standing before me had directly said my name.

“Listen, sir,” I explained, trying to get the man to leave as politely as possible. “Even if he was in house, we can’t tell you. It’s a security concern. We can’t give you his room number, we can’t let you into his room, we can’t even let you call him. Not that the line would even let you; it only works about half the time and the other half it’s screaming obscenities in foreign languages. So unfortunately, since you’re not a guest here, and you’re not here for business, I’m going to have to ask you to vacate the premises.”

“Ah…” He clenched his book against his robe.

The two of us stood there, staring at one another. Awkward silence filled the room. I didn’t budge, but he didn’t leave either. The only sound came from Billy’s television show and the soft ruffle of the wizard’s hat as it adjusted itself or himself or whatever the hell it was atop his head.

“You should lightning bolt him.” The hat remarked.

“Excuse me?” I glared, more baffled at the fact that Ratbag had just said that so openly than scared of actually getting electrocuted.

Perizo slapped the hat with one hand. “We can’t just lightning bolt everyone who gives us a hard time.”

“Well, he obviously knows what we’re talking about. Zap him until he talks!” The hat’s response was a whining complaint, as though he’d had this conversation before and grew weary of relitigating it.

For a moment the wizard seemed to actually consider the idea, running a hand through his white beard and examining me through narrow eyes. His brow furrowed, and he murmured something to himself.

“If you kill him, you’ll have an angry spirit chasing after you,” Billy warned from the lobby, an air of disinterest in his voice.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first.” Perizo sighed. “Come now, sir, surely you can help me in some way? I don’t want to have to listen to my hat.”

I realized that there was a chance this was about to get out of hand. Moon couldn’t help me; he was a glorified security system. Dolly was six inches tall. And the various ghosts and specters of the Grinning Moon were finicky at best even when they liked you.

But this was my job. And the longer I talked to this guy, the less I wanted to give him what he wanted.

“It’s policy, sir,” I informed him. “My management would tell you the same thing.”

Perizo opened his mouth to speak, but before he did an unfamiliar voice joined our conversation.

“I knew I’d find you here, you blasted fool!” A new man walked into the room, pale in complexion and a little older than the supposed wizard standing before me.

“Clothes!” I screamed immediately, covering my face with my hands.

The new arrival was nearly naked, wearing nothing but vines and leaves across his crotch and a long, feathered cloak colored a deep black. Paintings covered his skin, displaying crude images of animals and plants. His matted brown hair was long. So long it nearly reached the ground, and I swear I saw a squirrel nestled in it about halfway down his back. Bird's nests rested atop his head.

It was only then that I realized the man wasn’t human. His ears ended in sharp points, but the real attention-grabbers were the curved horns atop his head. Likewise, from the waist down, he had the furred legs of a goat. His hooves clopped against the wooden floor as he approached, bounding toward us in a strange half-trot-half-walk. A satyr.

Once I was certain I wasn’t about to see a goat cock flopping around my lobby, I removed my hands from my face and sighed.

Perizo pointed an accusatory finger at the new arrival. “This is mine, Irutok!”

“So you can take all the credit for my find!?” The satyr bleated, stomping angrily.

Ratbag let out a snort from atop Perizo’s head. “Well, if you weren’t so slow, we wouldn’t have to take initiative. It’s not our fault you’re such a damn recluse. You probably live out there to avoid the taxes.”

“Don’t speak to me that way, cur.” The goat-man threatened, “I’ll have you used as kindling for my next bonfire.”

Dolly and I exchanged glances, completely lost.

“You know I need this,” Perizo told the satyr.

“All I know is you’re a bloody thief, and I will not allow you to get that briefcase under any circumstances.”

This made Perizo laugh, a mocking gesture that was done directly in the satyr’s face. He spread out his arms in either direction. “Oh, you wanna go, Irutok? You’re a big man, huh? Step up. Step up, bitch! Come on! Take the first swing!”

The satyr, who I assumed was Irutok, bleated and stamped his hooves.

I tried to get them to leave the lobby again, opening my mouth to speak. But before I could, Perizo opened the book he had been carrying. A shock wave erupted from the open tome, sending papers fluttering in every direction and knocking over Dolly and I’s board game. Dolly himself was sent flying off the desk, smacking into the wall with a heavy thud before sliding to the ground. For my part, I was almost knocked off my feet, only barely keeping my footing by gripping the edge of the front desk.

Billy shouted from where he was mounted, “Hey!”

Infernal chanting filled the room. Perizo’s eyes began to glow a brilliant blue, filled with an inner light that sent beams of radiance shooting in every direction. Every hair on my arm stood on end, and a metallic twang hit my nose. I could taste it in my mouth, like a bar of copper rested against my tongue.

“Oh, you’ve done it now.” Ratbag laughed from atop Perizo’s head.

And then without warning, the chanting stopped. All at once a hundred bolts of lightning erupted from the open tome, striking every nearby surface. A crackling roar filled the lobby, and I did the only sensible thing I could.

I ducked behind the counter, screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs. Billy shrieked, “HEY, NOT THE FACE!” as electricity danced across the ceiling and walls. One of the chandeliers was sent crashing to the floor. As the glass shattered in every direction, I covered my head, grabbing Dolly and holding him against my chest.

When the buzzing finally faded, I set Dolly on the ground with a hand, eyes wide as I dared a look over the counter.

Now Irutok was standing in the lobby, perched atop one of the couches near the opposite side of the room. I’d almost he’d accidentally stepped onto one of the mimics, even if it meant I’d be the one prying him free of the thing. But he hadn’t. He remained standing on the couch, arms spread in an open challenge to Perizo and Ratbag. “Please, your meager power has nothing on my years of wisdom.”

“You’re only three years older than me!” Perizo put a hand in his book before pointing the same hand in the satyr’s direction. A bolt of purple, ethereal energy rose from the page before shooting across the lobby.

Irutok threw something toward Perizo. Small, round, black objects bounced across the floor with a hundred little taps as they scattered across the wood.

Billy was swearing and shouting at them, “Not in the damn lobby! My television! You’re going to smash my television!”

His words fell on deaf ears as the dozens of little black objects erupted into monstrous vines covered in multicolored flowers. Seeds. The plants tore through everything, ripping apart couches and chairs. Billy shrieked as his beloved television was knocked from the wall, slamming screen-first onto the wooden floor. Protective runes placed upon the Grinning Moons' walls and support pillars flashed to life as the plants collided with them, deflecting the rapid growth every which way.

Now the lobby was a mess of plants and furniture. And it only got worse.

A bolt of electricity erupted from Perizo’s outstretched hand, arching erratically toward Irutok. The satyr dashed across the furniture. He hopped from place to place, nimbly dodging the rapid bolts of energy with such speed he was a mere blur. When he passed by Billy, one of the lightning bolts struck the deer head atop the antlers, earning a yowl of pain from him.

Billy tried to snap at the passing satyr, but his gnashing teeth couldn’t quite reach. Irutok threw more of the seeds, causing another burst of flowery vines to tear the lobby apart in an attempt to stop Perizo. One of them managed to find their mark, throwing the wizard across the room like he was a mere ragdoll.

To my surprise, Perizo flipped in midair, grabbing and hanging onto one of the chandeliers with his free hand.

“Shoot him!” Ratbag screamed.

“You could help, you know,” Perizo grumbled irritably, dropping from the chandelier with a huff.

Now the satyr’s back was turned to me. Perizo stood on the opposite side of the lobby, his arms outstretched mockingly. The two continued to bicker and argue, sounding more like annoying siblings than powerful magic casters trying to kill one another.

I finally managed to get a word in. “Hey! Take it outside! You’re trashing the whole lobby!”

But neither of the men paid me any mind, which only made me angry. A lightning bolt struck the wall behind me and I ducked, cursing. I glanced at Dolly. The doll shrugged helplessly, obviously unsure what to do.

So I grabbed the nearest object and threw it at the satyr.

Since his back was turned to me, he didn’t see it coming. It was only after I’d thrown the object at him that I’d realized it was the small chest mimic we had sitting at the front desk. I watched as it soared through the air, letting out a gurgling shriek as its tongue lolled behind it.

Upon connecting to the back of Irutok’s head, it clamped down on the back of his scalp.

The satyr yelped and recoiled, reaching his hands over his head and flailing wildly, “Cursed thing! A mimic? What hotel has a mimic!?”

Yeah, he pretty much echoed my sentiment every day we had to remind guests not to cross the red ropes. But in this case, I was more than happy to have the vicious bastard at my disposal. It chomped down again, tearing hair from the satyr’s head.

Ratbag cackled from across the room, “Look how the mighty satyr screams!”

“Beat by a little chest,” Perizo said, obviously amused, his laughter echoing Ratbag’s.

Growling, Irutok tore the mimic from his head – alongside a fair amount of his own hair. Then, with a bleat, he pitched the mimic toward Perizo’s face.

The wizard was so busy laughing with Ratbag he didn’t see it coming. I watched as the mimic bit down square on his nose, grumbling and screeching. Perizo shrieked, hands gripping either side of the mimic and trying to pull it from his face without tearing his nose off with it. While the two struggled, Irutok caught his breath, chuckling quietly to himself and mumbling under his breath.

Billy cheered the mimic on, smoke curling from his fur. “Yeah, bite his stupid face! He shocked the shit out of me! Tear off his nose!”

Eventually, Perizo threw the mimic to the side. I lost sight of it in the various vines and brambles that had grown throughout the lobby. He rubbed his nose, a trail of blood flowing from it into his beard. Then he pointed a crooked finger at Irutok. “This is why your mother left you under the weeping tree!”

“Your mother doesn’t even know your name!” The satyr barked.

Another blast of lightning flew from Perizo’s tome, setting a vine near the front desk alight. I leaped back as the fire took hold, licking the edges of the desk. Orange flames started to dance across the entirety of the vine, slowly moving toward the rest of the newly grown plants.

In a panic I ran to the storage room as new sounds of destruction split through the lobby. Hurriedly, I filled the mop bucket with water, hoping to douse the flames before they really started to spread.

I ran back behind the desk, turning the bucket and throwing the water out into the lobby. My aim was true, and the flames died in a hiss of steam. Another lightning strike narrowly missed my head and I was knocked to the ground, inadvertently shoving one of our computers over as I fell. At this rate there wasn’t going to be a lobby left for me to manage.

“That’s it!” Irutok finally said, “We’re ending this here! And then I’m dropping you from the top of Centrifuge Tower!”

The satyr raised his fingers to his mouth and whistled. It was loud, far louder than any whistle any normal person should have been able to make. The sound reverberated off the walls, sending a chill down my spine. It felt like the surrounding air grew thicker, as though it was suddenly harder to breathe.

I scrambled to get back on my feet, gripping the edges of the front desk. The moment I could see the lobby again, a bird cry so loud it shook the building erupted from outside the Grinning Moon. For a moment the battle stopped, all eyes turning to the windows facing the parking lot.

A dark figure descended from the sky, with wings so large you could have put a small car on each of them and had room to spare. Black feathers billowed elegantly in the wind, yellow eyes catching the light as the great avian stretched cruelly curved talons. The creature wore hundreds of bone effigies which shook in the wind with each mighty flap of its wings. I was cowed by the pure size of the monster. Something so big and alive soaring through the air was truly a sight to behold.

It would have been a much better sight not shooting directly toward the glass windows of my hotel lobby.

“You didn’t!” Perizo sounded horrified.

“Yes, Perizo! The Reaper of the Western Winds! The great bird deity Windrazer! And he comes for you, you fool!” The satyr pointed a finger at the wizard, cackling dramatically.

And then the bird slammed face-first into the glass, a puff of black feathers flying every which way as its face smashed hard against the reinforced glass. Nobody said a word for several seconds. The great beast slowly slid down the side of the building before falling backward, launching even more feathers into the sky. Several protective runes flashed to life around the front of the Grinning Moon.

Irutok put a hand on his forehead and sighed. “I forget birds can’t see windows.”

Perizo stared out the window at the unconscious bird. “Is he dead?”

“Probably just stunned.” Ratbag noted, “Some deity.”

“He’s not literally a god,” Irutok replied, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, idiots.” I waved my arms, finally attracting their gazes.

I pointed at the surrounding lobby and the mess they’d left. The upturned furniture and the destroyed flooring. Smashed chandeliers and shattered glass. Billy’s prized television obliterated on the floor. The chest mimic scurried through the magically created undergrowth, chasing after a bug that had crawled out of one of the flowers.

Both of the men awkwardly shuffled, rubbing the back of their heads. Despite their actions and original brazenness, they did seem a little embarrassed.

Miraculously, about half the furniture remained undamaged, and the vending machines were unharmed. But everything else would take some serious effort to fix.

“Get the hell out of my lobby,” I growled.

The two nodded hastily and made their way outside. Ratbag said as he left, “Wait, why are we leaving? What’s he going to do, shame us? We could blow him up!”

“Shut up,” Perizo muttered to him, smacking the side of the hat.

“Yes, listen to your master.” Irutok agreed, hooves clopping all too loudly.

Ratbag let out an incredulous “Master!?” before their voices were out of earshot.

I rubbed my eyes and sighed.

“My goddamn television!” Billy groaned, “Now what am I supposed to watch!?”

Dolly clambered onto the stamp book where we stamped in to start our shift, to my left. Then, he stamped in. He turned toward me and scribbled on a sticky note. “I’ll get the gardening tools.”

Gratefully, I gave him a nod.

We spent the next couple of hours starting to clean the lobby. As promised, Dolly found some shears from our gardening supplies for the courtyard alongside a shovel and some gloves. He set to cleaning up all the shattered glass while I cut the vines away. I even potted some of the prettier purple flowers to spruce up the lobby. Call me employee of the month with all that extra thought I put into my job.

While we worked, I made sure to keep an eye on the entryway. I could see the two men talking, and the great bird had joined them – leaning down to fit beneath the carriage porch. After about an hour, they finally left, the satyr hopping atop the massive avian and taking to the sky, and the wizard with his talking hat walking toward the edge of the forest.

“I hope I never see either of them again,” I muttered.

“You and me both,” Billy grumbled. “Assholes.”

Fixing everything was a tall order for just Dolly and I, and Billy, as per usual, did little to help matters with his constant whinging. By the time my shift was nearing its close, I was pulling an older television out of storage for Billy and plugging it in across from him.

“Oh thank god.” Billy breathed, “I thought I was going to be stuck watching the two of you garden for the rest of the night.”

Dolly held up one of his arms, waving it toward him in a rude gesture.

“Yeah up yours too, doll.” Billy replied, “At least you can walk around.”

“Well, you can quit your whining now,” I said, turning on the television and shoving the remote into his mouth.

He gagged, spitting it onto the ground in front of me and coughing, “Nah, that’s just rude.”

The sliding doors at the front of the lobby opened behind me and I turned to face them, ready to apologize to whoever had walked through the door for the chaos in the lobby. It wasn’t good for guests to see everything in such disarray, but there was only so much we could do.

A man stepped into the Grinning Moon, hands in his pockets. He wore a long, brown trench coat that was torn at the ends, lined in ornate runes and glowing green hexagrams. Under this coat, he wore a simple brown and white suit with a black tie dangling from his neck. In one hand he held a straight smoking pipe which was flowing freely with smoke, the scent hanging in the air around him as he entered the building. He brought the pipe to his mouth, scratching the stubble on his face with his free hand as he inhaled. Atop his head sat a narrow tricorne hat which somewhat obscured his eyes.

He examined the lobby, returning one hand to the pocket of his black pants and adjusting his pipe with the other. Then, his eyes fell on me, and he asked in a gruff, somewhat humorous voice, “Bad time?”

“I apologize for the state of the lobby,” I said politely, hurrying to return to the desk.

The man put up a hand. “Not looking for a room.”

This, of course, only put me on edge. I stopped in place and examined him coldly, folding my arms and waiting for him to elaborate.

“Something tells me you’re sick of hearing that today.” He chuckled.

“You have no idea,” I remarked as the chest mimic scurried past me on the floor. Putting up a finger to tell the new arrival to wait, I quickly leaned down and picked it up. The mimic let out a soft shriek in protest, but I held it shut with my hands and turned my attention back to the man. “So what can I do for you, sir?”

“Got a call from a Mando Ligovan.” The man took a long drag from his pipe. “Something about an ice cream truck?”

I knew what he was talking about, of course. But I was surprised Mando had already gotten in contact with someone. He had mentioned calling people he knew to help, but after everything that had happened that day, I was understandably skeptical.

Billy, however, had absolutely no problem discussing the subject openly. “Yeah, some weird-ass truck pulled up in the middle of the night and grabbed two people. Almost grabbed a third, but we locked them in. Weird to see a spook actually show up here.”

Our new arrival raised a brow. “A talking deer head? That’s a unique gimmick.”

“I’m not a gimmick, pal. I run this lobby.”

“No, you don’t.” I sighed. “And don’t call him a spook; that’s rude.”

“Eat me.”

The man waved a hand in my direction. “So, you know about this truck, kid?”

Since Billy had ruined any chance at subtlety, I nodded. “What about it?”

“Mando didn’t mention I was coming?” He asked.

“No, Mando’s already out for the day.” I explained, “Dolly, did Mivara say anything to you this morning when you relieved her?”

Dolly shook his head, coming to stand beside me.

“It could just be she forgot; it wouldn’t be the first time she’s forgotten something important,” Billy remarked.

“Well, I suppose I’ll introduce myself then.” The man reached into his coat, withdrawing a gold shield-shaped medal with several pieces of paper hanging from it. I couldn’t make out all the details, but I saw a logo I didn’t recognize and the letters P.O.I.S engraved in the center. “I’m Detective Brand of the Private Occult Investigative Society. We heard the NPS wouldn’t come, so I decided to at least look into whatever is going on a bit. He reached out to us via a scrying orb.”

I could have sworn I’d heard of the P.O.I.S before. The badge looked official enough, although I wasn’t exactly versed in that sort of thing. If Mando had really called him, then it wasn’t a good idea for me to be so standoffish.

So I shrugged, “Well, if you’re looking to talk to my boss, you’ll have to come back tomorrow. Like I said before, he’s already gone home.”

“So who are you, then?” The detective asked, “You work the desk?”

“Jhin. I’m the Senior Groundskeeper.” I explained, “I run the place while he’s away.”

“You live on site?”

“Yes.”

The detective pointed to my head. “What’s with the bandages?”

“Rough night.” I kept my response short, not sure exactly how much I could trust this man.

Brand nodded, motioning around the room with a hand. “I’ve heard stories about this place. Said to be one of the most haunted hotels in all of Nultock. Lots of odd disappearances and disturbances. I work with the NPS pretty often. When I asked them about this place, they really didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, that happens a lot.” I admitted, “We can’t get police help here at all.”

“Explains why your boss called me.” He said, “We work with law enforcement, but we’re a separate entity. A lot of the same credentials, but more privatized. So even if the NPS is too scared to come here, we can help.”

If that was true, it was the first piece of good news I’d heard that day. An actual detective coming to help us? Talk about lucky. I wanted to confirm with Mando, but since he wasn’t here I’d have to take the man’s word for it. While I wasn’t always the best at gauging people, I felt like he was at least earnest in his line of questioning.

“Did you see it?” The detective asked, derailing my train of thought.

I nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Not unfortunately. Means my trip here today wasn’t a complete waste of time. Would you mind if I interviewed you?” Brand pulled a notepad from his coat. “Just to get another eyewitness account. I’ve already read what your boss gave us, but I’d love to hear from you if you were there.”

At first I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to talk about what had happened with him. Mando had flat-out told me not to bring up the incident with anyone. But Brand was obviously eager to get started, clicking his pen as he waited for my answer.

So I took a risk and said, “Sure.”

The two of us found some undamaged chairs and sat facing one another. Brand leaned back in his chair, blowing a plume of smoke.

And then came the questions.

He asked me all sorts of things, starting with some basic small talk. I assumed this was just to get me more comfortable and get the words flowing. I’d like to say I still kept myself fairly guarded, but I found him strangely disarming. Before I knew it, the conversation had shifted briefly to Nyx, which the detective seemed interested in. But then he steered us back on track.

“You were alone when the truck came the first time?” He asked.

Dolly had brought me a bag of chips from the vending machine. I was taking them from the doll, thanking him and motioning toward the detective. “I heard it before I saw it.”

“Interesting. Any discernible logos? Words on the vehicle?”

I tried to remember. In fact, I even pulled out my memoir from behind the desk and wrote my entry from the night prior. “A bright pink logo of ice cream. And on top of the truck there was a big fake ice cream cone. There were words, I think, too, but I couldn’t read them. They weren’t in a language I know.”

Brand wrote down these details, mumbling to himself. He furrowed his brow, tapping the tip of his pen on the paper of his notepad as he was lost in thought.

“Sir?”

“This is extremely helpful, Jhin.” The detective said, looking over at Billy, “Can you corroborate what he said? I assume you were in the lobby since you can’t really get around.”

Billy bobbed his head. “True. I was asleep for the first time around. The second time I woke up about halfway through. Didn’t see much; damn carriage porch pillar kind of blocked my view. But I saw enough to know everything he said is true. He even got brained by the one lady the truck took.”

“Hence the bandages.” Brand acknowledged, glancing at me.

I gave a small nod.

Detective Brand looked down at his notes. Then, he stood, extending a rough hand in my direction. “Thank you, Jhin. I’ll be in touch with you and your boss.”

I took his hand. The shake was firm, the tight grip of a man who spent far too much time talking work and wages. When the detective pulled away, he put the notebook back in his coat and whipped around. Dolly, Billy and I watched him leave. I could tell all three of us wanted to say something, each waiting eagerly for the detective to exit the building.

As soon as he was gone, Billy said, “Man, this is some bullshit. You see the way he looked at that notepad? He knows something.”

I reached down and let Dolly clamber up my arm. The doll sat atop my shoulder, pointing toward the sticky notes on the front desk. While I walked him over, I glanced over at Billy. “I mean, that’s kind of his job if he really is a detective. To know things, I mean.”

“That doesn’t bother you?” He asked.

“He does his job, I’ll do mine.” I hesitated before admitting, “Although I will say I’m a little curious if that’s really true.”

Dolly wrote, “It seems like he’s heard of the ice cream trucks showing up like this before.”

I shrugged, setting the chest mimic back on the front desk. We just didn’t know. And with everything that had happened over the last couple of days, there was a lot of work to do. Especially with the mists coming up. We would be busy. So I set back to work fixing the lobby, working well after the sun had set outside. Billy watched television and Dolly helped me pot more of the plants.

“I think Mando will appreciate that we took the time to pot them,” I told him.

The doll agreed, scribbling, “They do add a bit of pop to the lobby.”

When Mivara came in to relieve us, we were making good progress. But the job wasn’t done, much to her chagrin. She pushed her glasses up and paused in front of the storage room door that led behind the desk, staring at the mess with the same tome she had brought to Zozo’s the other day clasped in her hands.

“Long story,” I told her.

“I figured. Although if Mando thinks I’m going to play gardener, he has another thing coming.” She noted dryly, walking around the desk and stamping in for the day.

I motioned toward the vines. “I work the morning shift. Tell him I’ll finish taking care of it tomorrow. Dolly and I have been working on this all night.”

Dolly nodded in agreement, writing, “And I’m off tomorrow, so it will just be Jhin.”

Mivara put a hand on her forehead, grumbling. “Now I feel bad. Here I thought I was going to be able to study some runes tonight. Fine, fine. I’ll help a bit. But I’m not potting the damn things; that’s overkill, eh?”

She pointed to one of the pots I’d arranged and set on the desk near the chest mimic. The brilliant purple flowers were in full bloom, and I swear golden pollen glittered in small clouds around them in the lobby light.

“You can just shove them in a trash bag. I’ll take them out in the morning.” I said, “Don’t wander too far from the lobby at night.”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Mivara said dismissively, “I’m not new here, Jhin.”

“I just warn you because last time that happened, you got trapped in a mirror.”

“And I learned my lesson.” The woman complained semi-defensively, “I won’t roam the halls and touch things that aren’t mine; I get it. That’s our senior groundskeeper’s job.”

Her tone dripped with sarcasm at the mention of my title.

“Don’t I technically outrank you?” I thought aloud, a small grin forming on my lips.

“Please, you couldn’t outrank a hob.”

I laughed, a short burst that slowly devolved into a fit of coughing. Mivara looked concerned as I hacked and gagged, putting a hand to my mouth. Any semblance of teasing or complaint was gone. Just a small frown and a look of pity, like she was watching someone kick a dog.

“They’re getting worse again.” She said.

When I pulled my hand away, it was coated in a black, viscous fluid. It was time for me to take my medication. It explained why I’d been so started when my shift started and why there was a slight ache throughout my entire body. The only bad news was that I was at least a day out from getting my next dose. I’d need to talk to Mando in the morning to see if the building owners had finally got around to getting it out here.

I saw her staring at me, and I quickly cleared my throat. “It’s fine. I’m going to wash my hands and get some sleep for tomorrow.”

“Alright. But if you feel sick, make sure to call off, eh?”

“Yeah, I will.” I lied. There was no way I could call off with the lobby in the state it was in, regardless of whether or not I was sick.

Dolly raised his arm and gave me a small fist bump as I turned toward the elevator.

“Night, Jhin.” Billy snorted, not even glancing in my direction.

“See you in the morning,” I replied.

As I walked to the elevator, my stomach churned, and the cough returned. I tried to stifle the sound, but it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. So I quickened my pace, hitting the up arrow. I couldn’t help but notice that the strange shadow from a few days prior was sitting above the elevator again, but I didn’t pay it much mind. Just another oddity in the string of oddities that made up this place.

Once I entered the elevator, I hit the lift to the fifteenth floor. That was where Nyx's and my rooms were, in a hallway reserved specifically for employees. Unlike the rest of the Grinning Moon, the rooms here never changed. Nyx and I both had permanent rooms here. Mine was part of my deal with the building owners, and Nyx paid for hers at a reduced rate as a permanent resident.

When the doors dinged open I stepped out, covering another cough with the back of my arm. The hallway was covered with black and silver carpets covered in our logo. Our rooms were about halfway down the hall, and I quickened my pace, eager to get home.

The hall was lit by white lamps that hung off either wall, although the one hanging near Nyx’s room was currently off. While most doors in the hotel were plain, both of ours were decorated since they were essentially our homes. I’m only now realizing I haven’t really written about or described either of our rooms, so I’ll at least describe our doors and my room here.

Nyx’s door was colored a ghostly, deep blue with bright runes in shimmering purple along the edges. The room number, 803, glowed in a similar purple in the center of her door. A small notebook sat tied to the doorknob via twine, and a silver bell hung beneath it. Beside the door at ground level sat a metal bowl.

For my part, a line of salt was crossed in front of my rugged, brown door. This was fairly normal in the Grinning Moon as it helped stop spirits from entering certain rooms. But since so many of our patrons were of the ethereal variety, we only applied these lines to rooms spirits weren’t staying in after a guest checked in. Moon and the housekeeping staff oversaw this, but sometimes I would tidy up the salt lines when they were ruined.

Like Nyx’s door, mine had a number of purple runes on it alongside the room number 804. Nyx had the runes installed with permission from Mando years back. She said they were for my protection, whatever that meant. I didn’t argue since they seemed harmless enough. Otherwise, my door looked fairly similar to any other door in the hotel. The main difference was the bell tied around the doorknob with my own small notebook.

This was our way of leaving each other messages before we left, similar to the note she’d left in the stamp book for me. As for the bell, Nyx loved the things. She put them all over the place wherever she could.

I fished my key out of my pocket and opened the door to my room, being careful not to disturb the line of salt as I pushed inward.

My room, while not the most lavish of spaces, was more than enough. I had a small kitchen with a magic cooker and oven alongside a bathroom with a bathtub and standing shower. A television sat on the left wall with my bed facing it to the right. While there wasn’t a ton of furniture, I did have a small dining table and four chairs to go with it. There was also a mini fridge located in the kitchen. It was a large enough space you could fit ten or so people inside.

On a desk beside the bed sat my camera and various spirit photography equipment. Lenses, my newest camera, a bag full of accessories and more. Hundreds of pictures were tacked to the walls around my bed, displaying my favorite shoots of unique spirits, ethereal energy anomalies, and ghosts. Whirling displays of multicolored light and glittering sparkles seemed to pop out of the pictures.

Spiritual photography was a little different from normal photography. Most of the pictures had some sort of filter over them due to the special lenses used during the taking of the images. Some of them looked more like paintings than pictures, while others were so acutely sharp in the way they looked they appeared almost too clear.

I coughed again, making my way toward the bathroom sink and washing my hands of the black sludge. The sight of it made me feel ill, but I tried not to dwell on it too much. Instead, I looked up at the mirror over the sink that also held the medicine cabinet behind it. Without a word, I opened it, pulling out my usual mixture of pills and drugs that helped stave off my symptoms when my normal medication wasn’t available. A concoction of pain pills, cough medicine and more.

Gagging, I choked them down with a glass of water before grabbing a cola from my mini fridge and downing damn near the whole thing in one go.

Then, completely exhausted, I changed into a loose sweatshirt and collapsed on my bed. I glanced over at my wall of photos, my eyes falling on a photo of Nyx looking out over the city from the Grinning Moon’s rooftop.

“I hope you’re doing okay, Nyx,” I mumbled to myself, shutting my eyes.

Before I knew it, I was falling asleep, exhausted from my shift at the Grinning Moon.

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