From across the road, the hotel Cortez was quite unremarkable. It was the bland, towering walls, the vast front doors, that separated the world of the living from the depraved world of the dead.
It was a busy evening in downtown, your eyes moved over each passing car, every individual that didn't give the lonely building so much as a glance as they passed through the street. As you crossed the road, you looked through tunnel vision, glare never unlocking from those doors even when the wheel of your suitcase caught on the curb, and sent you onto your knees. You rose with a tear in your leggings, a bloody scrape on the skin now exposed there. Your eyes were wide, and you worried at your lip. Free hand curled into a fist, your ears were filling with white noise. Your determination bordered on hysteria.
As you set foot once more through those doors, you felt the curtain separating everything that was good, human and light, fall behind you. You dragged your suitcase to Iris' empty reception, dumped it behind the desk.
The hotel lobby was silent as usual and your hurried steps towards the elevators echoed off the walls.
"Y/N what are you doing?!" you heard Liz cry from the bar.
Your eyes flitted up to the first floor balcony where she stood, her face dropped in horror. Even Sally, sitting there with her face twisted back over her shoulder, gaped at you.
"Hi Sally" you muttered nonchalantly, with only a note of bitterness. That James hadn't really exciled Sally was of no great shock to you now.
You ignored their bewildered stares, disappeared behind those ancient doors and pressed the 'seven' on the elevator keypad. The doors shuddered closed around you, the elevator whirred to life and you tugged loose threads on the sleeves of your sweater.
Floor seven sat in darkness, no lamplight, no music. It was as though you had dreamt it all, and the sinister hallway had been untouched for nearly a hundred years. How you wished that were the case.
You retrieved the rosary from your pocket as you stepped out into the hallway, wound the beads around your fist. You held the cross pendant to your lips, whispered into it as you treaded towards room seventy-eight.
It was as though the pendant whispered back, showed you through quiet, muffled screams all the souls that had been snuffed out on this floor.
The door to James' suite was on the jar, a dim, distant light came from inside, and you pushed it open without breathing.
You found the room cold, dead, as you stepped inside. The bluish tinge was a stark contrast to the party you had attended here only twenty-four hours ago. You followed the slim trail of light into the lounge, where a singular, dying candle sat flickering next to the gramophone.
"James" you asked into the emptiness. Four corners of darkness that the light couldn't quite reach.
You suspected that you wouldn't have to wait long for him to find you - he was a ghost afterall.
The seconds ticked by, the room in silence, and you stood close to where the candle sat. You ground down through your heels to force yourself not to back out.
You were afraid, but you glared into the flickering flame, willing the small, pale light to stay with you.
"There was a time I thought John was my greatest creation."
You near enough jumped out of your skin. His voice was low above your head, you felt his presence behind you immediately.
"But I see now that it is, by far, you." James murmered.
It wasn't a praise, there was nothing kind about his voice. You stiffened. You quickly slung the rosary over your neck and raised it to your lips once more, kept your eyes focused on the trembling light.
"Lord, cast the devil out of this place.." you whispered as quietly as possible "cast him out and free these spirits for yourself to pass judgment on, cast them-"
"To hell?" James interrupted, cold breath tickling your hair now "now now little girl, that isn't very nice..."
You swallowed hard.
"No James" you braved, and you turned around slowly to face him. He was as close as you expected, oddly more ill looking in the pulsing candlelight, and you gazed up into his hard eyes.
"Not hell" you whispered, struggling to keep your composure "but not here. Not where you can hurt anybody else."
His answering smile was sinister, cruel and he laughed.
You repeated your prayer into the rosary and your eyes remained glued on his.
He grabbed a hold of you, so fast that you were still chanting in his grip. Your spine twisted and you were thrown forward into the wooden draw. The edge of it rocked at your hip, and you cried out in shock. The candle clattered onto the floor. You were suddenly in complete darkness.
You felt your chest pinned against the adjacent wall. The prayer knocked from your lungs, both hands flew out in a vain attempt to steady yourself, but he dragged your wrists behind you, pinning them into your lower back.
"I don't think you came here to banish me darling" James chuckled, his grip on your wrist squeezing that bit tighter.
You began to struggle. It was no use. James stepped closer, his body flush to yours now and your cheek pressed harder into the wall.
"Keep doing that dear, I have all the time in the world" he drawled.
"You have to stop this James" you croaked.
"Oh Y/N.." his finger looped under a strand of your hair, tugged it in a way that was almost affectionate "I do enjoy you when you're desperate."
"You're evil" you spoke in a small, confessional voice.
He was so close now that you could only see his pearly teeth as his face split into a grin "yes, and you don't care."
"That's not true."
"Oh?"
His whole body pressed into you now, his hips doing the most to pin you against the wall as they pressed lower, into your ass.
His excitement strained against his trousers, and though you were loathed to admit it, your stomach fluttered at the contact.
"But here you are" he crooned "because you can't stay away can you? You're addicted to the darkness, like me..."
His mouth lowered to the curve of your shoulder, wet on the flesh there and an unwelcome longing electrified your veins. As his teeth sunk lightly into your skin, you resisted the urge to lean back into him.
"Then do it. Whatever you're going to do" you breathed, gasping as his tongue pressed down against your skin "murder me like all the rest."
James stilled.
"But you can't, can you?" you tried and his deathly kiss left you.
There was silence for a few moments, and as the seconds went on, you became surer that he truly couldn't.
Your tears had made their way down your cheeks now, your breath was shaky, reduced your voice to a murmer "because you're not completely dead. Because you know that I love you."
His grip on your wrists had slacked and he'd stepped back at your words. With a sniff, you peeled your wet face from the wallpaper, turned gently in his hand, and he let you.
His razor eyes were trained on your face, his own screwed up in what looked like a mixture of horror, of disgust. He stood as motionless as a statue.
"Ha!" he bit darkly "foolish girl."
You didn't buy it.
He couldn't trick you anymore, and you were going to prove that to him. You swallowed your fear. You grabbed James by the lapels of his jacket in a manner that only slightly betrayed your doubt and kissed him.
He responded instantly. His cool lips returned the pressure but his hands hovered at your sides.
You tried to deepen the kiss for a moment, to add meaning to it, but he growled into your mouth. He ripped your arms away from his chest, and you stumbled back into the wall behind.
"It matters to you that I feel that way" you urged breathlessly "I know it does."
James wrinkled his nose.
"Yours is the only heart beating, darling."
You ignored it, stepped forward, toe to toe with him.
"You do horrible things but you're not as dead as you claim to be James. That's why you let me go. You couldn't kill something that loved you."
James was silent then. The strain in his face was so evident even he couldn't hide it.
You held his gaze triumphantly and lifted the pendant of your necklace once more, whispering into it now.
You knew you had only seconds. As you prayed your final words, the room seemed lighter. It was only a comfort's worth of whiteness in the dark room, like a bedroom night light.
Regardless of whether that light was from your prayer, from God, or from Miss Evers' lighting up the hallway for her nightly shift - fury flashed hot in James.
"Fine!" he growled "as you wish."
He seized the top of your arm, made a bee-line for the door as he practically dragged you behind him. Your knees scraped across the carpet of the lounge and you scrambled to find your footing in the new darkness of his bedroom.
He swung you effortlessly onto his bed, his other hand finding your throat for a moment as you fell. He didn't choke you. Instead, you felt the chain of your rosary snap as it was torn from your neck. Heard the sound of the beads as each one came apart, and scattered onto the carpet.
WARNING: next chapter - SMUT, explicit, consent is rather dubious...