“I did, yeah.  Said it should be about a week’s worth of work.  I’m supposed to be on the inventory crew.”

He nodded.  “Good.  Well, go on in and get settled.  We’ve got plenty of space, as you can see, but pick out a room to stay in on the first or second floor.  Need to stay together when we can.  Any questions for now?”  When I shook my head, he gestured behind him like the world’s most grizzled concierge.

“Well then, welcome to the Imago Hotel.”

****

The lobby of the hotel was even more ornate than the exterior, with wood and brass mixing with marble and chrome to create the impression you were entering some kind of schizophrenic monument to wealth and opulence.  It wasn’t that it wasn’t impressive—in many ways it was.  Even after years of disuse, everything seemed well-made and surprisingly clean.  And the lobby as a whole seemed to speak of a strong artistic vision of how to marry various materials and styles together:  Spiraling black marble columns ran down into polished oak floors and up into coffered ceilings filled with abstract symbols of gold and silver filigree on the ceiling.  It gave the feeling of stepping into a palace or temple, though I couldn’t say what the object of worship would be other than wealth or questionable taste.

Because for all of the objective beauty around me, from the long open space of the lobby itself to the finely woven carpets, deeply polished woods and works of art that lined the staircase and the hallway on my journey to find a room on the second floor, everything was…off-putting somehow.  And it wasn’t just that it was an abandoned hotel.

Yes, I did find the idea of staying in a large abandoned building with a group of people I didn’t know or trust a little creepy and disconcerting.  But I also found a degree of comfort and peace of mind in knowing that being in such a remote and obscure location likely gave me a degree of safety from being found by the thing that hunted me.  If my father had been right, it would find me eventually wherever I went, but this should hopefully buy me time to figure things out while also providing me with money for when I moved on.

No, the bigger issue was with the hotel itself.  First, it really was in good shape.  Like, the last guests checked out last week good shape.  Given the wording of the job ad and the condition of the parking lot and signs outside, I had the impression it had been a few years at least.  But more than that, it was a feeling I got.  It was like the feeling I’d had outside, but multiplied by a hundred—the sense that something was coming, being anticipated.  As though the hotel itself was watching me and biding its time.