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“No, Beans, we were,” he muttered. “We saw him fighting that time at Cratos, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Beans’ beady eyes grew vacant. “Man, that was so cool. You punched that lampyr so hard the guy turned into a cow. I didn’t even know lampyrs could do that.”

“They can’t. I think he turned into a human wearing a cow suit.”

Beans nodded sagely. “That punch really messed him up.”

Focusing on Brian again, Frank plastered another creepy smile on his face and this time brushed imaginary lint off somewhere he could reach—Brian’s stomach.

Brian’s nose wrinkled. He crossed his arms and took a step back.

“Look… Brian… what’ll it take for you to not call the cops?” Frank took off his tiny sunglasses. “You want zippers? We can get you zippers, man. Real good ones. Top quality. Teeth that slot together like a dream, pulls with curves in all the right places…”

“Just—” Brian sighed in exasperation and wiped a hand down his face. “Just don’t go anywhere fucking near Goliaths. If Dan sees you…”

“We’re not even into heads anymore.” Beans sneered. “He needs to move on. Why is he still obsessed with us? God, desperate much?”

“And you’re not staying here,” Brian added, frowning down at them.

“Hey, no, wait,” I piped up. “They can stay here.”

He turned to face me, looking worried again. Leaning on the desk, he lowered his voice. “Klaus, I know they seem like a pair of… But they are actually violent criminals. They physically assaulted Dan at work, and they committed a string of armed robberies in the nineties…”

“Oh.” I stared up at him, wide-eyed, a hand creeping up to clutch at my throat as I peeked at the pair behind him. “Okay. Um… the thing is… my uncle will be really mad if I turn down a customer who hasn’t actually done anything wrong here…”

Brian’s nostrils flared. “Even if they’re a potential threat to your safety?”

“I mean, no, of course not, but…” I peered dubiously at Frank and Beans again. “I don’t think they’re gonna do anything here. And it’s… you know… that’s a motel’s thing. We don’t ask questions, we don’t judge. If you can pay for a room, you can have a room.”

He stared at me in silence for a long moment, then sighed and straightened, scrubbing his face again. “Okay. Sure. It’s your motel.”

Spinning to face the pair, he frowned at them. “But I’m going to be here. All night. With Klaus. I don’t want to see either of you come out of your room again, you hear me?”

“Sure, sure, yeah, yeah, no problem, man.” Frank patted Brian’s side again. “Won’t hear a peep. We don’t want any trouble from you, big guy.”

“Can we practise our karate in the room?” Beans asked, kicking the air again.

“No.” I shot them both a stern glare. “Do not damage any of the furniture.”

Beans huffed, his lip curling. “Fine. We’ll practise our yodelling, then.”

I paused, thinking about it, then nodded and turned to the monitor to book them in. “Yodelling is fine. I’ll put you in room thirteen,” I added brightly, wanting to snicker to myself.

Harold was going to have a very, very bad night.

“Oh, ho, ho, lucky thirteen.” Beans fist-pumped the air with a manic grin. “You fool. You’ve given us the exact room we wanted.”

After Frank had paid in cash and I’d passed over the room key, he glanced around furtively, reached into his pocket, then slid an orange zipper across the desk toward me.

“For your trouble,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth, flipping up the collar on his boiler suit to try and hide behind it as he turned for the door. With a sharp click of his tongue and a head jerk, he gestured for Beans to follow.

Chapter 22

Don’t Be Suspicious

Klaus

The moment they were gone, Brian sank back down into the armchair and rubbed his forehead. “Why the fuck are they here?”