There were few patrons in the Hotel these days, or at least patrons who were using the rooms. The cultists had figured out that they were allowed to enter as much as anyone else as long as they behaved. They had also figured out that Anton had no issues with ejecting them when they stopped behaving, or using the gangs to help, and didn't quite care.

Anton's original policy had extended only to patrons. He'd expanded it when the gangs used the Hotel as a meeting-place. Now the gangs and the cultists were the only people left, and the cultists were cocky. The gangs were, inside the Hotel, on Anton's side--outside the Hotel, he was just another Foreigner. The Hotel's lobby was a powder-keg waiting to happen and Anton did not like it at all.

The time was going to come, very soon, when he would be forced to kill any number of them to assert his authority, and while the gangs understood to some degree they also wouldn't exactly hide it from the rest of the kedan. It could turn ugly.

Then again, it was war.

Either way, Anton was watching the cultists in the lobby very, very carefully while he worked the desk. They were packing the building and he knew it; many of them had paid for rooms they wouldn't use just for the right to remain. Fortunately, so had the gangs.