Paradise Lot: Interludes (Dionysus's Story)

Chapter 1 - Champagne Problems

"I already told you ... I don't want the banisters removed." I looked down at the dwarf who was about to demolish the stairwell's railing with a pickaxe. He was the foreman of the construction crew I hired to get the Millennium Hotel ready for opening. And he was driving me crazy. I looked round the hotel's foyer for support, but the angel Penemue and the human teenager EightBall—two creatures that just happened to live rent-free in my hotel—did not come to my aid. Instead, Penemue watched as he drank sickly sweet Drambuie and EightBall smirked.

I returned EightBall's grin with a sarcastic, 'Thanks a lot', scowl of my own.

The dwarf lifted his pickaxe over his head and growled, "But it is metal twisted to look like a garden. A garden!" He was referring to the cooper mural that acted as the lower catchment of the hotel stairwell railing where each metal section was twisted into an outdoor scene. You know, stuff like a picnic, a man cutting down a tree, a fox hunt. Outdoorsy stuff. Dwarves, who typically live their entire lives underground, hate gardens. Metal, on the other hand, was something they loved and that was why he wanted to destroy the mural. Metal artwork depicting the outdoors was hideous to dwarves.

To each their own. Only thing was ... this wasn't their own. This was my hotel. I liked the mural and I wanted to it stay. Not that that mattered to the dwarf who continued to argue with me. "A garden is for outside. Inside is for things that are solid, strong and forever. Trees die. Plants fade. Metal is immortal. And whoever thought that it would be good to combine the two was ... was—"

"I like it," I cut in.

The lead dwarf looked at me with an expression of utter indignation, and then he dismissed me with a waved hand and a dwarven giggle that came out in a series of pap, pap, pap sounds.

"So, you don't like it?" I asked, knowing the answer. The entire crew of dwarves nodded in unison. "You think the décor is ugly." The dwarves stomped their feet in agreement. "Fine, I get it, but regardless of what you think, it stays. For safety reasons." I pointed straight up. The Millennium Hotel was a circular building with a hollow center. Each floor looked out onto that very empty center and one could look all the way down to the reception desk, seven stories below, which meant that a top floor dweller could fall all the way down. Onto my reception desk. And, if I was really lucky, on me.

Unless, of course, you had wings.

The dwarf was about to protest again when Penemue chimed in, "Jean-Luc, it seems that you two are having a clash of cultures. Do you mind?" He gestured down at the dwarf.

"By all means," I said.

Penemue, the fallen angel who lived on the seventh floor, strolled over to the dwarf. Being eight feet high and built like Mr. Olympus, Penemue could not have been more opposite to the four-foot nothing, stoutly-built dwarf. Whereas Penemue had lush golden hair that rolled down his back, the dwarf's head looked like it was covered with steel wool. Whereas Penemue wore a tweed vest with a pretentious pocket watch chain that latched onto the top button, the dwarf wore blue-jean overalls with a red balloon on it that I am fairly certain he got from GAP Kids. And whereas Penemue had massive, white feathered wings, the dwarf had, well, nothing. He did carry a comically over-sized pickax though.

The angel reached down with one of his massive talon-fingered hands and picked up the dwarf from the tuff of hair on his head. He lifted the creature so that they were eye level. "Is that really necessary—" I started, but Penemue lifted a finger, silencing me. The dwarf did not look like he was in pain and after fourteen years of dealing with Others, I knew enough to let these little cultural exchanges play out.

The two of them just stared at each other, eyes locked.

"What's going on?" EightBall asked. EightBall was the only other human that lived in the hotel. A kid no older than eighteen, he used to run with an Other-hating gang called the HuMans. Now he worked for me and although his Other bashing days were behind him, he still had that distrusting fire in his eyes.