Moon Child (Page 25)

"Enough with the threats, asshole. I have the medallion."

He veritably hissed with pleasure. "Good, good! Then I expect to see you soon," and he clicked off.

Chapter Forty-one

The massive hotel stretched from city block to city block, surrounded by a low, medieval-style brick wall.

An array of lights lit the hotel, and the building’s sheer complexity of style was enough to nearly overwhelm the senses, everything from Spanish Gothic, Mission Revival, Moorish Revival, Renaissance Revival and Mediterranean Revival. I know something about architecture. If I hadn’t been an investigator, I would have been an architect. And the inn was a wonder to behold.

I was in a parking lot on Orange Street, along the south east side of the building. There was a side opening here that I was familiar with, one that led to a small bar that Danny and I had frequented many times, where we drank wine and beer and ate lightly breaded chicken strips and listened to a talented cellist and talked about our days.

Those days were long gone.

Years ago, before I met Danny, my first visit to the hotel had been a laughable one. I was running late to my then-boyfriend’s cousin’s wedding. I was in college and working two jobs and I had barely gotten off in time to rush out from Orange County on a Saturday evening. Running in high heels and clutching my dress, I dashed into the first chapel I saw. The wedding was about to start. Feeling self-conscious, I sat in the back row and looked wildly for my boyfriend, assuming he was sitting somewhere in the front. I felt like shit that I had come so late that I couldn’t find him, but at least I made it, right? I had never met his cousins, and I didn’t know anyone in his family, and so I sat in the back alone, going through the motions of a very Catholic wedding, kneeling and crossing and saying prayers with everyone else.

After the longish wedding, when everyone poured out into the courtyard, I was caught up by a group of women who forced me up a spiraled staircase for pictures. As I continued to scan the milling crowd below for my boyfriend, I paused every so often for the photographer. We took a God-awful amount of pictures, and when I was finally released, I happened to see another chapel on the far side of the courtyard. Another wedding had taken place, and was just now finishing.

And there, exiting through the doors, was my boyfriend.

Exactly. I had gone to the wrong wedding. That’s me, Samantha Moon, the original wedding crasher. To this day, I’m certain the bride is wondering who that cute, dark-haired girl was in all her photos.

Back when I could take photos, of course.

Needless to say, that night only went from bad to worse, and my boyfriend and I broke up in an epic fight. I met Danny shortly thereafter and the rest, as they say, is history.

Good times, I thought, as I stepped across the street and headed under the veranda and into the gloomy bar where the cello player had long since disappeared. Now, no one played, and that was a damn shame.

I moved through the lobby and front desks, and through what appeared to be yet another lobby lined with presidential portraits. I assumed these were all the presidents who had stayed here. The hotel felt damn old and I sensed many, many lingering spirits. Hell, if I was a spirit, I would linger here, too. A ghost could do worse than haunt the Mission Inn.

Now with the hair on my neck standing on end, I turned and saw where one spirit was semi-manifesting. Staticy energy formed into the shape of what appeared to be a teenage boy. He was watching me casually from one of the spiraling staircases that led up to the more expensive suites. As I watched him, he took on more shape and made a partial appearance, the crackling energy briefly replaced by a wispy cloud of ectoplasm. Had someone chosen now to take a picture of the staircase, they would have captured an honest-to-God ghost. Anyway, his eyes widened with some surprise when he no doubt realized that I was watching him in return. He came to life, so to speak, and drifted immediately over to me, where he stood in front of me, smiling. Was that a wink?

I could be wrong, but I think he was flirting with me.

Next, the strong impression of a name appeared in my thoughts. "Your name is…Leland?" I asked.

He nodded vigorously, and now other spirits seemed to take note. They were manifesting around us rapidly, like human-shaped sparklers. Some fully formed, although most crackled and spat crackling energy, only vaguely humanoid. Most were dressed in older-style clothing. Some of the men even wore hats.

"Now look what you started, Leland," I whispered to the teen boy.

He frowned, and then shooed the other spirits away, moving quickly to each. The others departed, some clearly irritated, others fading into nothing or zipping away like blazing comets through the hotel. As they did so, I caught a very real little girl watching us from across the room. She was standing next to her mother, her index finger hooked into her mouth. Her wide eyes followed some of the fleeing spirits. Kids can see far more than we realize.

The teen ghost faded in and out of clarity, sometimes reverting to nothing more than a crackling human torch, and other times to a dapper young man who could have hailed from the 1920s. Once, he even made a gesture to dance, holding out his hand as one would lead a woman to the dance floor, and only then did I notice the ambient music playing over the hotel’s speakers. A sort of jazzy/classical rag-time, of the type my grandmother would listen to. Had the classical music drawn him downstairs, I wondered, reminding him of his days when he was alive?

I was about to say goodbye and turn away when I noticed something about his face. There was something that looked like blood coating his lower jaw and staining the front of his shirt. I next had the strong hit of a single word: tuberculosis.

So Leland had died here at the hotel, long ago, and has been hanging around ever since, his chin and shirt forever stained with the ghostly hint of perhaps his last coughing fit.

"I have to go," I whispered to him, "but thank you for the offer to dance."

As I turned to leave, I realized I had no clue how to actually get up to the dome. I turned back to the young man, and somehow, someway, he was able to read my thoughts, because he was nodding excitedly and motioning for me to follow him. He held out his hand and, feeling rather silly, I reached out and took it – or simulated taking it – knowing full well I looked silly as hell to just about everyone else. Everyone, that is, but the little girl.

He led me quickly through the massive hotel.

Chapter Forty-two

We went through some doors – well, he went through them, I had to open them – and once in the outside courtyard, moved quickly past an elegant restaurant that I had always wanted to try. Back in the day, Danny and I were too poor to dine elegantly. Drinks and chicken tenders were about all we could afford.