Free Children Of The Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know by R.A. Hakok

he’s shed his parka and without its bulk he looks painfully thin. I guess Dr. Gilbey’s ‘no firearms’ policy doesn’t apply to the sergeant either; his gun belt’s still strapped around his waist, the old silver pistol slung low on his hip.
    When we get to the lobby the bellhop cart has returned but our boots are nowhere in sight. Hicks leads us past a bank of elevators and down a long, dark corridor. Most of the emergency lights are out here and those few that remain flicker and buzz, like the bulbs inside are close to failing too. We pass a succession of double doors. Some are closed, but others hang ajar. I look in as we walk by. The banquet halls and ballrooms behind sit in darkness, the furniture under the drop cloths so many gray shapes in the gloom.
    Ahead of us a thick red rope hangs from a pair of brass stanchions, blocking the way. Hicks stops before we get to it and turns to a door on the right. A varnished wooden sign above reads ‘The Colonial Lounge’. He knocks once and from somewhere inside I hear a muffled ‘Come’. He opens the door and we step into a large semicircular room. Tall, arched windows stare back at us from between heavy silk drapes, the night-darkened glass reflecting the quivering light from the handful of emergency lamps that remain on. Large pink flowers with bright green leaves adorn the walls and as I look up I see another chandelier hanging from a high, domed ceiling. Beneath its dusty crystals more items of furniture, scattered across the checkerboard marble just like in the lobby. Most hide themselves under gray dustsheets, but the shapes are easy to make out. Chairs, sofas, occasional tables, lamps; in the corner what looks like a piano. In the middle of the room three high-backed chairs, also covered, have been arranged around a low table.
    I look around, confused; I thought I heard somebody telling Hicks to come in but there doesn’t seem to be anyone here. I walk over to one of the windows. The snow’s drifted up, obscuring the panes near the bottom, but higher up it’s only found purchase in the corners. I cup my hand to the glass and peer out. Tables and chairs have arranged themselves haphazardly around something that might once have been a fountain; large plant pots sit empty under a blanket of gray snow. It all seems cheerless and vacant now, but I can imagine how it must once have been to stand here and look out onto that terrace, with sunlight streaming in through the windows.
    ‘It has lost some of its former glory, hasn’t it?’
    I turn around to face the voice behind me. A slender woman sits in one of the chairs, her back to the door we just came through. Her head doesn’t come close to clearing the top of the chair, but that’s not why I’ve missed her. The white lab coat she’s wearing has been washed so often it’s hard to distinguish from the dustsheet behind her. Above it her skin is wan, pale, and the hair that frames her narrow face is the color of ash. Even the eyes that regard me over the top her narrow, metal-rimmed glasses are gray. It’s like she’s an almost perfect absence of color.
    ‘Dorothy Draper, wasn’t she just a genius?’
    She speaks in clipped, precise tones, each syllable enunciated perfectly. The accent is foreign, but immediately familiar. It’s the one Mom was going for when she’d read to me from the book about the English rabbits.
    The expression on my face must tell her I have no idea who Dorothy Draper is however. She smiles, a barely perceptible lift of her thin lips, and raises one hand from the arm of the chair to gesture around the room.
    ‘Romance and Rhododendrons. It was her theme for The Greenbrier.’
    This doesn’t get me much farther; I’ve no idea what a rhododendron is either. I look over at Mags for help. She shrugs and says ‘The big pink flowers on the wall, Gabe.’
    The woman looks over at Mags, as if noticing her for the first time.
    ‘Yes dear, very clever. A big flower. The state flower of