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Once again Jeremy looked intrigued. It was funny how quickly the two of them could go from taking jabs at each other to actually cooperating. “Go on,” he said.

Logan shifted forward in his chair, happy to have an audience. “My gut feeling is this: maybe Walcott is responsible for what happened here. You say he threw hexes. Maybe there was something to that. Only whatever he did to screw the hotel, it ended up screwing him also.”

Kara nodded. “And then Northrop comes along. He tries to fix things. Reverse the hex. And he fucks things up too. Even worse.”

Jeremy seemed to be following along, even nodding in agreement with them. It felt good. Really good. Almost like progress.

“And here’s the kicker,” said Logan. “You…” he pointed at Jeremy. “You tried to destroy that mirror the other night. You even shouted the word ‘NO.’ So what if…” he paused to scratch at his face. “What if the spirit that took hold of you was Walcott?”

All three of them fell silent. Jeremy stared back at him, completely enraptured.

“What if he understood we’re here to unfuck the hotel, and knew we needed the mirror in order to do it?”

Kara broke out in more goosebumps. It was a solid theory. She looked at Jeremy. Not only was he unafraid, he seemed almost excited at the prospect.

“If that’s true, then we have to hurry,” Jeremy finally said.

Logan nodded. “We’ve got everything we need. Assuming the scrying crystal shows up again, and I’m sure it will.”

“And tonight’s the night,” said Jeremy. “The winter solstice. Our last chance.”

“Plus the room’s all set,” Logan added.

They both looked at Kara. For some reason they were deferring to her. Ironically, she even knew what their next step would be. Even if she wasn’t all that crazy about it.

“Only one thing left to do…” she said.

Thirty-Six

“For fuck’s sake it’s about time you called back!”

Xiomara’s wizened face took up the whole video screen. Wherever she had the camera set up, it was way too close. Kara had to chuckle. The old woman was wiser than all the rest of the Order put together, but there were some things she’d simply never get the hang of.

“Sorry,” Kara apologized. “The storm made it almost impossible to get reception. Last night alone we couldn’t—”

“Ever heard of a land line?” Xiomara snapped. “Check the front desk, or Prescott’s office. It’s what we used back in the stone age, before all your fancy cellular technology took a big shit over everything.”

Kara and Jeremy both knew enough to stop talking. Logan however pushed the envelope.

“How did that work anyway?” he grinned. “Weren’t the dinosaurs always knocking down the telephone poles?”

Xiomara’s face went utterly blank for several seconds. Either she was on the verge of breaking out laughing, or Logan was about to get the mother of all ass-chewings. It honestly could’ve gone either way.

For some strange reason she ignored him completely.

“LoPresti,” Xiomara finally said. “If this clown’s all finished with his act, I’ll tell you what we know.”

“Please,” she said, shooting Logan a staying glance.

“Alright. Here we go.”

On screen Xiomara leaned in even closer, like she was talking in confidence. It distorted her features to cartoon levels. Her forehead looked enormous.

“The book is gibberish, for the most part. We’re not sure if it was written by a charlatan or a genius. Either way, it seems the ritual was finished, at least for the most part, when Rudolph Northrop got to the marked page. So if I were you, I’d leave that part alone.”

Kara nodded, and Xiomara went on.

“The sigil scratched into the candle is a glyph. It’s meant for protection. This seems to bolster your theory that Northrop was doing right by the hotel. Either that, or he was just trying to protect his own sorry ass from whatever holy hell he was unleashing on the Averoigne.” The old woman stopped for a moment to let out a long breath. “My gut feeling is it’s the former.”