Bare Her Soul (James Patrick March x reader )

Twenty

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.