CHAPTER 24
As winter died and turned to spring—the ice and snow a memory—only nightmares remained, but I did my best to adapt to my new role within these old walls: a simple man, caretaker, husband to Marsha.
In time, I moved into her apartment, and to the extent that we were able, we set about putting together a life. We both had our demons, our dreams, and sicknesses that lived deep inside us, but together we tended to the hotel, the grounds, and the needs of the Queen. We watched over the pupa in the catacombs beneath the building and tried our best to forget the rest.
Insanity, ash on the Devil’s wings, fell all around us, black snow from Hell, gone before we could catch it, just like the bastard himself. One day bled into the next, and time dragged on, slow and agonizing, like a sh
