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There are moments when you look at your life choices and wonder where you got it all so wrong.
The goblins sat on the rafters, cackling away, delighted by their destruction and my thinly veiled distress.
My name is Miss Elle Spell.
People call me Miss Spell.
We are nothing but monsters when we abandon our manners.
And I do mean that quite literally.
Let me tell you, it is hard to remain the picture of elegant cool when creatures from the Dark Dimension are thumbing their nose at you. Or more specifically in this instance, picking their noses and flinging their nostril nuggets at you.
I slowly wiped the glop of boogers from my long, scarlet hair. I had spent all morning getting it curled and ratted just right. The higher the hair, the closer to goblins, evidently.
I flicked it away in a slow move dripping with every ounce of contempt I felt for these animals. It hit my ruby, flocked wallpaper and left a trail like a banana slug in a May garden.
This sort of visitor behavior was not covered in the Other Places in the Other Side: A Handguide for Haunted Hotel Owners, and once I was done with these beasts, you better believe I was writing a letter to that editor.
"The No Spell Hotel is a Four Bat establishment," I informed the goblins. "Recognized by the Coven of Other Side Suites for excellence in hospitality and you are not behaving in a manner befitting of your surroundings. This ballroom has been reserved for a private party and I must politely ask you to vacate the rafters."
They just screeched with laughter, again, at my gall.
I pointed my perfectly manicured finger at them, unable to keep the pitch of my voice from rising. "I have the right to refuse service to anyone I please. Do not make me ask you to leave."
They began pulling out the lit candles from the iron chandelier and then threw them at my head.
"Ooo!" I stormed as I stomped out the flames, hoping I caught them all before they could damage the parquet. Since we laid off all the hotel staff, I had taken it upon myself to personally wax the floors by hand. There was pride buffed into that shining surface. And now I was going to have to sand out scorch marks? I marched to the double doors and flung them open. I paused to pronounce, "You are in so much trouble."
By the sound of their glee, I'm pretty sure they didn't believe me.
I headed down the thick, crimson carpet past suits of armor and oil paintings of my dead ancestors, around the front desk in the lobby, and into the janitor closet.
Ajax was at the mahogany check-in counter. He rested his chubby cheek on his fat little fist as he watched me fling buckets and cleaners out, trying desperately to clear enough space to reach my broom.
The dwarf raised a single, bushy eyebrow. "Unruly guests?"
I fixed him with a glare.
Ajax is my right-hand man. Built like a spark plug, he stands about waist high. But don't let his lower stature fool you. Ajax gives a whole new meaning to the term grumpy dwarf (please don't tell him I used his name in the same sentence as that cartoon.) But between you and me? You do not want that man swinging his axe at your kneecaps. His family was jamming shovels into the bowels of the earth since the elfin forest was nothing but a grove of saplings.
In his youth, Ajax wanted to get into show business. He can tap dance like no one's business, but dwarven drinking songs went out of vogue and he needed a day job, so here we are. Strong as an ox and fueled with the jaded bitterness of broken dreams.
I wouldn't fight him in a dark alley at midnight.
But when you're running a hotel on the Other Side, especially a hotel like the No Spell, you don't cozy up to pixies and buttercups.
What kind of hotel is the No Spell?
Well, normally I would pull out our full-color, tri-fold brochure that I put together for the Other Side Board of Tourism and Places Not To Get Bitten.
But now that we had goblins in the rafters, I was probably going to have to set fire to it all on account of false advertising.
What's the Other Side?
I apologize! You looked so comfortable here, I didn't know you were new.
Welcome to the next dimension! As in, the dimension cozied up next to Earth. You see, once upon a time, there was a mighty battle between monsters and humans. The monsters were chased out by this organization called the World Walkers to a place where they could eat each other's faces off and be as nasty as they wanted to be. It was called the Dark Dimension.
(Listen, World Walkers might be all fancy, jumping between worlds and such, but they are lousy at the naming thing.)
Then, the World Walkers stuck the humans on Earth and set up a system to siphon off the excess magic so as not to attract the hunger of said face eaters.
And stuck smack-dab in between is the Other Side.
Our magic is fueled by human imagination. All the dreams that disappear in the morning, the exciting ideas not pursued, they run like water in a drainage ditch to the ley lines of my world. Ain't much magic on Earth because of those ley lines. But here? You can barely pick up a stick in the forest without it transforming into a magic wand.
Ley lines like the ones that ran through my property until my idiot coven turned off the tap and plunged me into goblin-infested poverty.
Me? Bitter?
Wherever did you get that idea?
Don't answer that.
In exchange for this excess creativity, the council of the Other Side agreed to be home to all the monsters no one wants roaming around Earth, but weren't quite wicked enough to banish with the baddies. We've got vampires and gargoyles and zombies and... well, people like me.
I'm a witch.
Now, before you go getting ideas, I'm not out sipping unicorn blood or biting bats to gain my powers. I came from a respectable line of magic weavers through my mother's side.
But as a witch, you don't have many options. You can go into real estate, coaxing building ideas out of people's thoughts until they form into the solid home of their dreams. You can go into clean-up whenever some World Walker goes rogue and needs someone to tidy up their disaster on Earth. You can own a little shop and hire out for odd jobs – charms and love potions and such.
Or you can go into the hospitality business, because there ain't no one better at smoothing ruffled scales than a woman who can disarm her guests by literally disarming their magic.
That's what I did.
The No Spell Hotel is a gothic masterpiece, if I do say so myself. It's been in my family for centuries – granite stone towers topped with witch's cap roofs; a wrap-around porch for those who cared to rock in the night air; carved staircases of mahogany; gables galore; floors with inlaid ebony; and stained glass windows of only the greatest Other Side battles. With connections to hot and cold running ley lines, magical creatures once came from far and wide to bathe in our energy springs. We have only the best accommodations for gargoyles looking for a place to roost and were featured as one of the "Top Ten Roofs for Your Non-Cathedral Getaway."
And I'm really clear what to expect when you cross my threshold. This is the No Spell Hotel for a reason. There is no outside magic performed here without a license. Next to all my ley lines? It'd be like lighting a match next to a gas line. I allow beasts of all ilk across my threshold, but the first sign of someone getting ornery is a green light for me to dispense a little lesson on good manners.
Unfortunately, that's what it used to be like.
Due to a little altercation, the coven shut off my access to the ley lines and stripped me of my power. My good customers went elsewhere, and there wasn't a special I could run alluring enough to bring those gargoyles back to my eaves. I missed the sound of them on the roof, the comforting noise of a boulder being dragged across the shingles.
And without the gargoyles, a girl tends to get a case of the goblins.
"Just you wait, Ajax," I swore. "Those goblins better start counting their days... Because in just six short months, I'll get my powers back and when I do..." So furious I couldn't even form words, I shook my fist in the direction of the ballroom.
Ajax just picked up the phone receiver. "Would you like me to call for Other Side pest removal?"
"I have it under control!" I picked up my broom and headed back into battle, wishing I could use it to fly up to the rafters to introduce those creatures to its handle.
I heard the rotary numbers spinning and then Ajax's voice drifted distantly down the long hallway. "Yes. Ajax here at the No Spell Hotel... Good to hear your voice so soon, too. I'm afraid we are going to need the exterminator... Goblins... Yes. Again."
My skin burned with frustration and embarrassment.
Without my magic, the only thing I could use my broom for was sweeping at the goblins like I might a spider web in a high corner. To be fair, spiders have evolved so their webs can pre-chew their food. But couldn't Ajax at least pretend we weren't in trouble?
But the dwarves are a practical people.
"She said she is going to attempt to get rid of them now, so we'll be ready for you in about—" The ancient grandfather clock next to the front door tolled out the hour. Ajax squinted at it and then turned back to the phone. "—fifteen minutes or so..." I scowled at him over my shoulder. "Yes, go ahead and head on over... no need to check back first... Fantastic. Put it on our tab... Yes, I realize we are close to our credit limit... Oh? A subscription plan for frequent clients? That would be lovely. I'll arrange payment to be at the desk. See you in fifteen. Bye!"
Darn him to heck for being right.