The Minor Fall

"And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue
But 'Hallelujah...'"

Alright, time to process this shit. I guess it's a good thing Hal... Dad... convinced me to keep this thing around.
I'm still not sure how to categorize what happened at the hotel.
I was right about Pan, which is... not nearly as satisfying as it should have been.
I was looking over Don's email on the way back from L.A. with Gunnar (and Camila, following behind us in Nate's car), and it clicked. At least I knew what to expect, right?
No. Not right. Not that it really mattered, anyway. We walked away, which is always good. I went in thinking that since I had an idea who Tim's dad was, I had an idea how to protect Gunnar. Except, when we finally got to talk to him, Pan just kinda said thanks, but I'll get to that. Guess I can mark that off the list of shit to worry about.
And I met the first collector, like I wrote earlier. Or maybe I didn't. That doesn't matter too much, either. Some woman in camo pants called my name, froze me, said something about seeing how I like it and she knows what I did last summer or some such.
I was shaken, yeah. Mostly because Jack and Brendan were right fucking there in the lobby with me and I was just hoping they were outside of the blast radius when the bomb dropped.
But it didn't. She booked my room, froze me with her eyes, like I did to Marie, and she was gone.
Nate and Gunnar busted in, guns drawn gods love 'em. Dinner time was coming quickly, and even though I'd lost my appetite it seemed like a good idea to act normal.
I just pushed some stuff around on my plate. I was willing to pick up the meal since I was already paying for the rooms, but Nate ended up doing it.
Just as well, because I'm expecting there to be a massive charge from where we were in the desert for like... a month. I wonder if they stopped charging after the hotel blew up.

Anyway, turns out Tim's dad owned the hotel and wanted to thank us by partially comping our meal (if he were really grateful it would have been free). Or maybe he just thought we were all wicked cool, and wanted to feed us. More likely he was trying to drug us but still make us pay for part of it. Gunnar gave the waiter his card so that Tim's dad could give him a call.
Apparently the waiter thought that "call" meant "call girl," but I'll get to that. The guys decided to investigate the place after they finished eating. I said I just wanted to go up to the room. Gunnar came with me, not wanting to leave me alone, which I'd be lying if I said I didn't appreciate. I know it's gotta be boring skipping all of the fun stuff like stealth recon and breaking and entering in order to make sure I'm not getting skinned. I never thought of myself as being such high maintenance.
He turned the rooms over, looking for bugs or bombs or... I don't know what. Suspicious stuff.
The guys came back later, and we just kinda sat around. The guys talked about what they found, and Brendan can fly.
Yeah. I should have paid more attention to what they were talking about, but instead I got lost in my own head a little bit until there was a knock on the door.
This was the call girl I mentioned earlier. Looked almost like she'd just walked off of a porno shoot.
Maybe I'm exaggerating.
Maybe.

She said she was going to take us to see Tim's dad. Tim's dad, for the record, is also on my shit list now. It's a rapidly expanding list.
Those creepy, skin crawly looks he kept giving me, like he was undressing me in his head... You know, he probably was. Yeurgh. Asshole.
And then Gunnar mentioned pretty much right off the bat that he'd killed Tim. I saw Brendan tense up, and I myself stepped closer to Gunnar, ready to pretty much get torn apart. And then Pan pretty much just said "TYVM, LOL."
After some more unimpressive banter (on Pan's part) Gunnar called him out on being Pan, and not the devil. Surprise? Pan applauded Gunnar's perceptiveness, and Gunnar gave me the credit because he's just that kind of guy. I almost wish he hadn't though, because Pan was almost licking his lips when he looked at me now.
Since I figured it out on the car ride, everything kept coming back to say it had to be Pan. Hates Apollo? Yep. Likes music and chaos? Yep. Broke up the Beatles? Yeah. Fucker.
He said we got one of the guys for killing Tim and the Father, and was willing to gamble for the other, in the form of a musical contest. I wanted to ask how that worked last time, but... I thought better of it.

We did really well. I asked for an instrument, and he handed me the violin. The 300-year-old, last one that was made, Stradivarius violin.
I alternated playing and singing. Brendan backed me up on an Irish fiddle, and the rest of the guys did backup for us. I hit most of my notes, and I can now say that I have manhandled a Stradivarius.
Sexy. Very, very sexy.
The rest of the guys did really well, too. I didn't know Brendan could play so well.
Then the devil went down to Georgia...
Wait, no, different story.

Anyway, Pan said it was a tie. I was tempted to ask him to play it upside down... But I thought better of it.

So we got to leave with Ty. Ty was kind of an asshole. We entered his room and the hookers he was with collected their clothes and when the words, "Fuck you, whitey" came out of his mouth I wanted very much to just punch him and be done with it. I settled for "bite me." Scathing, I know.
Then we walked through the desert... for days... and days... and then we walked some more, and Gunnar jumped onto a basilisk. Not really, but near enough.
That man and snakes, I swear. I'm dating Indiana Jones.

At least the basilisk didn't explode, that seems to still be limited to buildings. I think he said he's going to turn it into some boots. I like a guy who's crafty.
He and Jack were the only ones to get hurt in the fight, but I couldn't do anything for Gunnar's wounds. I had heard him scream after he jumped ahead of us, and I ran after him, several steps behind. I probably shouldn't have, but I know what pain sounds like and... my feet just started moving. I remember clutching at the lyre charm on my throat and praying hard that he wouldn't get poisoned or crushed or whatever else this scaly fucker had in mind.
Or at least that he would survive it long enough for me to close up the wounds.
Love makes you do stupid things.
Like run towards a basilisk with your eyes open.

Anyways. We found Horace after that, but we couldn't do anything for him. We were all so tired, and there were titanspawn surrounding him, and lots of satyrs, and it looked like they'd been feeding Horace something...
Plus, Nate, Jack and Brendan all went crazy over that creepy song at first.
I remember looking at Gunnar and shrugging, "Eh. I've heard better." Nate snapped out of it first, and they started dragging at Jack while I contemplated how to snap Brendan out of it.
Gunnar vetoed my only idea, so we just waited and I guess Brendan shook himself out.
I'm a little glad that Brendan seemed to have been too out of it to notice what that suggestion was, he's only recently started making eye contact with me again.

So we left Horace there. Broke my heart to do it.