Riley shoved a bill into the driver’s palm and exited the cab without speaking. Garret and I followed, and the taxi sped off. Leaving us on a deserted sidewalk many blocks from the lights and crowds of the Strip.
“What is this place?” I asked, peering through the fence. There were no lights, no roads or even pavement. The ground was dusty and flat, an odd field of dirt surrounded by concrete. Though in the distance, I could see the uneven, skeletal outline of some huge structure hiding in the shadows.
“It’s a hotel,” Riley said brusquely, shoving his wallet into his back pocket again. “Started but never finished due to the recession, most likely. It’s abandoned now.”
“Why are we here?” Garret added, observing the area with a wary, practiced eye. The paranoia had returned; he was a soldier once more, and every shadow could hide a possible threat.
Riley gave him a cold look, as if debating whether to explain or not, then shrugged. “I got word of a couple runaways tonight,” he said, making my stomach leap to my throat. “Possibly mine. They’re supposed to be here, somewhere, hiding from Talon. I figured with all the St. George activity in the city, I’d better get to them first. Before the Order shows up and blows them to pieces.”
Garret frowned. “You didn’t think it important to tell us before we left the hotel?”
“I don’t owe you any explanations, St. George,” Riley said. “You’re not here because I need you to be. We’re going in, grabbing a couple hatchlings and getting out as fast as we can. If that flies in the face of your dragonslayer convictions, feel free to take the next cab back to the hotel. No one here is stopping you.”
I bristled at Riley’s assholey-ness, but Garret’s voice was calm when he answered. “This could be a drug den,” he said. “Or a gang hideout. At the very least, there will be homeless people and squatters wandering around. If we’re going to extract two dragons without opposition, one or more of us should be armed.”
Riley snorted. “Against a bunch of humans? What are they going to do, babble me to death?”
“They could have weapons.”
“Then we’ll be really careful and not attract attention,” Riley snapped. “I didn’t have time to grab anything, thanks to your and Ember’s little disappearing act, and I didn’t want to risk carrying a duffel bag of guns through the casino. So no, we don’t have any weapons this time. Get used to the idea.”
“And the Order?”
“Wes is hacked into a couple traffic cams around the block,” Riley answered, making a vague gesture at the street. “He’ll let me know if there’s trouble. Don’t worry, St. George.” He gave Garret a cold smile. “I’ve got it all figured out.”
Before either of us could protest further, he turned and leaped gracefully to the top of the fence, then dropped noiselessly to the other side. Without a word, he spun and strode away into the darkness. Garret and I exchanged a glance and then hurried after him.
It was eerie, being on this side of the fence. My shoes raised small poofs of dust as we walked. Stacks of rotting wood, iron and huge cement tubes were scattered about the barren landscape, like modern skeletons in the dirt. There were no signs of life. Even the eternal sound of traffic faded, red taillights becoming distant mirages, leaving us in a bubble of darkness.
The entrance of the hotel loomed ahead, the strangely elegant front marred by a crown of jagged beams and unfinished upper floors. Again, I was struck by the eerie silence as we approached the shattered lobby doors and stepped carefully over the threshold into the darkness of the dead hotel.
The first thing I noticed was the heat. The second was the smell. The air through the doors was hot and stale, and reeked of piss, sweat, puke and general human disgustingness. I gagged and pressed closer to Garret. Who, of course, seemed unfazed by it all. Damn soldier unflappability. Riley, clicking on a small flashlight, wrinkled his nose, then turned to us.
“Stay close.” His voice, though soft, echoed in the emptiness of the lobby. “Looks like there are people here after all.”
“Ya think?”
There was a shuffle in the darkness, and Riley swept the flashlight around, pinning a thin, almost skeletal figure in the glare. A woman, her shirt nearly falling off her bony shoulders, gave us a glassy, deer-in-headlights stare before shambling away. My skin crawled, and I crossed my arms to hide my fear.
“Oh, that’s great,” I whispered, as the shuffling footsteps faded away in the darkness. “We’re in a zombie movie. I swear, if I see any walking dead, I don’t care who’s around—they’re all getting a fireball between the eyes.”
Riley gave an amused snort, as if he couldn’t help himself, and eased forward, sweeping the beam around the barren lobby. “Try not to burn down the hotel, Firebrand,” he warned, as the light slid over the front desk, which was covered in several layers of dust and cobwebs. “This place is a tinderbox. One spark, and it’s likely to explode.” Something small and furry darted across the floor and vanished into a crack in the wall. Riley shook his head. “Actually, that might not be a bad thing, but if an abandoned, multimillion-dollar hotel suddenly goes up in smoke, it’ll tell Talon and the Order exactly where we are. So no fireballs.”
“Oh, fine,” I whispered back, as we ventured farther into the hotel, following a wall as it curved away into the dark. “That’s okay. If we are attacked by zombies, I don’t have to run fast. I just have to run faster than you.”
Garret’s hand suddenly closed on my arm in a grip of steel, pulling me to a stop. At the same time, Riley froze. I looked past the thin beam of light from Riley’s hand and tensed.
We’d reached the edge of what was probably the casino floor, had the hotel been finished. The room beyond was large and open; I could see the aisles of carpet where slot machines would go, the long strips for blackjack tables. Though the space was vast, it was even hotter here than in the lobby, and the smell was so bad it nearly knocked me down. I didn’t know how anyone could stand it, but the small clusters of ragged, unwashed people scattered about the room didn’t seem to notice.
A few yards away, a trio of humans sat huddled on a stained, threadbare mattress, giggling as they passed something small and bright between them. The glow of a lantern washed over their slack, pale faces and staring eyes. Nearby, another human glanced up from where he sat on an ancient sofa between two human girls. The girls stared at us, expressions slack and far away, but the guy’s face hardened and he rose quickly.