Brooke Lee wanted to make the old Marreiott the pride of the town again. Instead she stood alone in the lobby at midnight, mopping goblin tracks off the marble. Her fourth housekeeper had quit that morning. "People say this place eats folks," the woman had said, and left before lunch. Brooke pushed her cat-eye glasses up her nose and kept mopping. Her curls stuck to her forehead. Her pantsuit reeked of bleach. She hadn't slept a full night in two weeks. A scratching came from the walls. Then a shriek from the east stairwell. Brooke didn't flinch anymore. She just wrote it in her notebook, like a plumber logging a leak. Faded grandeur, cracked ceilings, and things that moved after dark. She loved the building anyway. She could not run it alone, and no one sane would stay. The front doors opened. Two women walked in from the dark. The first had rainbow dreadlocks and bare feet, carrying a jar of dried leaves. The second wore a schoolgirl's uniform and horn-rimmed glasses, her pink hair damp with rain. Brooke knew the barefoot one. Moonflower sold herbs at the market and never explained herself. "You have a nest," Moonflower said. She set the jar on the front desk. "Goblins. Third floor. I smelled it from the street." "I know," Brooke said. "I can't hold the place. Staff won't stay." Moonflower opened the jar and shook out a pinch of powder. "They stay if the halls are clean. Goblins hate this. Burn it in the vents." The pink-haired girl stepped forward. "Tia," she said. "I hunt things that hide in buildings. This one's loud." She said it flat, like a fact. Then she crossed to the east stairwell, listened, and pointed. "Nest is above us. I'll clear it." Brooke stared. "You'll get hurt." "No," Tia said, and went up. Brooke followed with the mop still in her hand. On the third floor, Tia moved fast. Small hands, quick feet. She kicked a hole in the drywall where the scratching lived. Green shapes spilled out, snapping teeth. Tia struck each one down before it reached the stairs. Moonflower burned her powder in the doorway. The smoke drove the last of them out a broken window. When it went quiet, the third floor was still. Brooke leaned on the wall, breathing hard. She had two people who did not run. "I can pay a little," Brooke said. "Rooms, meals, and honest wages when the money comes." Moonflower picked up her jar. "I want the garden out back. The soil's good." "Take it," Brooke said. Tia wiped drywall dust from her sleeve. "I'll stay while the building's loud." Brooke wrote both names in her notebook. The nest was gone, but the smoke had drawn something to the shattered window. A pair of purple eyes watched them from the dark outside, wide and patient, and did not blink.

The nest was gone, but the noise came back three nights later. Not on the third floor. Below it. Brooke found fresh scratches inside a supply closet on the second floor, and cigar wrappers on the tile, the smell of their nasty smoke lingering in the air. The goblins had dug a new home in the walls. Guests were booked for next week. Brooke had promised the town this hotel would open. She could not open with things chewing through the plaster, breaking things and stealing from the guests. Tia crouched by the closet with her ear to the wall. "They moved," she said. "Deeper. I hear at least four." She pressed the drywall and frowned. "I can't hit what I can't see. Last time the nest was flat. This one has tunnels. I go in blind, I get cornered." Brooke rubbed her eyes under her cat-eye glasses. "So we need a map." "We need eyes inside," Tia said. Moonflower stepped in with a jar and a small glass box. Inside the box, a butterfly turned. Its wings shimmered like stained glass, and pink dust drifted off them. "They love this," she said. "Goblins can't resist the powder. It makes them slow and silly for a while, Release it in the wall. They'll chase it and show you every hole." Brooke didn't like using a creature as bait. But guests were coming. She nodded. "Do it." Tia cut a hand-sized gap in the drywall with her sword. Moonflower opened the box at the edge. The butterfly slipped into the dark, trailing pink. For a moment nothing moved. Then scratching erupted behind the plaster, fast and greedy. She heard a slurring voice, the word “shiiiiitttt” was all she heard. Brooke pressed her palm to the wall and felt it. Little bodies scrambling left, then down, then a hard right toward the corner. She called it out as she felt it. Tia listened and drew lines in her notebook. A branch here. A drop there. A dead end by the pipes. "I have it," Tia said. She tore the wall open along her map. They spilled out slow and dizzy, coated in pink dust. A small one in a baggy jersey stumbled, a gold chain swinging, a cigar still clamped in his teeth. Behind him came a woman goblin with long braids and fur boots, swinging her fists but tripping on her own feet. Tia moved through them. She struck each one on the head before they cleared the closet. The braided one bit her sleeve. Tia pinned her, and it went limp. The scratching stopped. The wall was quiet. Tia stood in the plaster dust, breathing hard, four goblins down at her feet. "Clear," she said. "All of them." Brooke sank against the doorframe. The butterfly fluttered out of the hole and drifted toward the window, wings flashing. Nobody chased it now. Then Brooke looked at the torn wall. Behind the goblin tunnels, the plaster opened into a dark shaft she had never seen on any blueprint. It went straight down, past the first floor, into the ground. Cold air rose out of it. Something below had made that hole first.

Cold air kept rising from the shaft. Brooke shone her flashlight down and saw no bottom. Whatever dug this hole was still below, and she had no way to seal it. Guests arrived in five days. She could not board over a pit and pretend it was a floor. She had to know what lived down there before it climbed up into her cleared rooms. "I'm going down," she said. Tia crouched at the edge, sword across her knees. "You'll get stuck. It's tight." She looked at Brooke's soft middle, then away. "No offense." "None taken." Brooke tied a rope to the pipe and looped it under her arms. "You anchor. Moonflower watches the top." Moonflower knelt with her glass box. Inside, a butterfly turned, wings shedding rainbow specks. "Take some," she said. She tipped shimmering dust into a small jar. "Throw it if something comes at you. It makes them slow and dreamy." She said it like a fact, not a suggestion, and pressed the jar into Brooke's hand. Brooke went down. The rope bit into her arms. The walls scraped her shoulders. Ten feet, twenty. Then the shaft opened into a noisy, technicolor chamber full of smoke and lights, her boots touched packed dirt. Gold caught her light first. A goblin sat on a heap of stolen watches and rings, fat and grinning, wrapped in a purple suit. A peacock feather bent from his wide hat. He raised a jeweled cup and a golden cane like a king greeting a guest. "You broke my roof," he said. His voice was thick with smoke. "Rude." Brooke's stomach dropped. This one hadn't dug the shaft to hide. He'd claimed it. Behind him, more tunnels branched into the dark. This wasn't the end of the goblins. It was their whole kingdom, and the four Tia beat were the least of it. He stood and pointed the cane at her. “Welcome to my crib, cutie,” the large goblin said excitedly with a slightly slurred greeting. Small shapes stirred in the tunnel mouths. Dozens of eyes shone. “You’re just in time for the party!” he said with bombastic laughter. “Don’t be shy, come on in, let loose and have some fun!” Brooke's hand held onto the jar tightly and tucked it away into her satchel. “I may need this later, hopefully not, but…” she thought to herself. The rainbow powder hung in the air. The gilded goblin breathed it in and swayed. His grin went loose. "Come here and let me get a good look at you," he said softly, and sat back down on his jewel-covered throne. “My, my, my, you are a very beautiful lady, I must say,” the goblin said. “What brings a lovely thing like you down here?” "Ummm.." Brooke mumbled, thinking fast she addressed the large goblin. “I was just curious where the hole in the floor of my hotel led to,” she said honestly with a disbelieving yet forced composure. “I don’t know what I expected to find but” Brooke held out her arms and gestured around the room. “A goblin club wasn’t anywhere near the top of my list. Honestly, it wasn’t even on the list.” The rope jerked. Tia was getting worried. Brooke stood gobsmacked at the spectacle around her. The goblin puffed up with pride. “It really is something, isn’t it?” He laughed hard and smiled wildly, showing more than a few golden teeth. “I wanted a place to just have fun and maybe do a little business, if you know what I mean?” He winked at Brooke. “So what’s your pleasure? Dancing, music, whatever it is, I have it, and if I don’t, I can get it,” he proclaimed with great pride, and then leaned down toward Brooke. With suspicion, he said, “Can I get you anything, a drink or something else? Something rarer?” A sly smile played on his lips. “Uh oh…” Brooke thought, she may be in over her head.