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Evan

I sighed in relief after Andy walked out the front door.

Lights flickered and the next thing I knew, Cary was being attacked. I tried to intervene, but I felt Inez holding me back. How I knew it was her, I wasn’t sure.

Then, I saw them fighting the old man. Cary was knocked aside before things sort of went blank. Like the magical energies around me were somehow short-circuiting my brain.

Cary rushed over to me, and the energy began to clear. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, you?” I asked, and he nodded. “Shit, Cary. I need to find Roy and—”

Roy walked into the reception area, and his eyes widened. “I-I’m sorry, Evan. I-I should’ve helped, but… but he… that man.”

I rushed over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. I didn’t think he saw or felt the ghostly energy, and if he did, I’d let Cary and Al deal with that, but I had a feeling this was more about my ex and his shitty ways. “Roy, I know how intimidating that man can be. And you did the right thing getting me here. If you see him come in again, call the sheriff, okay?”

He nodded. “Now, why don’t you go have a cup of coffee and a Danish? I’ll cover the reception desk for a while to make sure he doesn’t come back, okay?”

Roy nodded again, then headed for the kitchen. I pulled Cary over to the window bench between the wall and the stairs. “It’s back… fuck,” I said under my breath. “I think it has to do with Andy being here.”

Cary nodded. “Yeah, we need to get Al and possibly the rest of the coven over here as soon as possible.”

I looked him in the eye, but we were interrupted when the group that’d been rushing around taking selfies when I arrived needed to check out. “Thank you for your stay,” I told them. “Come back soon.”

The women kept talking about how amazing the renovations were. “We really love them. I mean, we stayed at The Pink Palace, too, and it’s so much fun, but this is more elegant, right, girls?”

I could feel Cary behind me, but it was groups like these that would ensure the hotel had a future. Normally, I would’ve gushed over their words. Today, I just wanted the place empty so we could figure out what the hell was going on.

Finally, the women left, and I turned back to find Cary talking on his phone. When he hung up, he sighed. “Al’s gathering the coven. I’m going to help them, and you should go home.”

I shook my head. “No, not this time. Andy is an ass, granted, but never that much of one, and never in public. Something was influencing him. I could feel it, and I don’t have your gifts.”

“Do we have guests tonight?” Cary asked, and I shook my head.

“Not unless someone signed up since yesterday. That was the last group to check out. We’re empty tonight.”

“Then,” Cary said and looked around, “I’m going to ask some of the coven members to spend the night in the hotel. I felt the entity, the evil,” he said, and put his hands on each of my arms. “I felt him, then I felt Inez and Andre force him back, but we have to help them. It could be dangerous for you, Evan.”

“It has to be me. This is my fight, Cary. So, I’ll be here tonight with you and the coven. My place is here.”

Roy returned then, and I told him we would have guests tonight. Friends, so I needed him to get the rooms clean as quickly as possible.

“I wish I could lock the damned doors,” I said, frustrated, as Roy rushed up the stairs to get started. The kid was a little high strung, but he seemed a little more weirded out than I thought was normal. I’d have to figure all that out later, when the crisis was over.

When Al arrived, Cary asked her to keep watch. “I want to spend some time with Evan and place wards around him. If he’s going to be here when the evil entity reemerges, he’ll need all the protection we can give him.”

I gave Al the name of my ex and told her to watch for him, too, and that Roy was freaking out about him. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I get the impression my ex scared him. Something’s going on there.”

Al nodded. “I know a bit about that. I’ll talk to him while you’re gone,” she assured me.

That was all I needed to hear. Roy had worked for Christie and Al for quite a while—since they opened their bed-and-breakfast. I had been the one to convince him to take the reception desk job, but maybe I’d moved too fast.

I shook my head, determined to deal with that fallout later. For now, I needed to get warded, or whatever Cary had called it. I could tell tonight was going to be important. I felt dread but also hope. I hoped we could somehow overcome the evil that still permeated this otherwise amazing place. I also hoped we wouldn’t have to die trying.

Despite all that, facing Andy again after all this time did nothing if not show me how much of a victim I’d been in the past. Having a man like Cary around made me think about things differently, all for the better.

I was tired of being a victim. Tired of letting circumstances dictate my life. I wanted freedom, and even though it scared the shit out of me, it looked like my path to freedom involved literally facing monsters.