Multi-Fandom One Shots

To Trust In Me (Queenie)

You didn't trust witches. Perhaps a bit hypocritical considering you were one, but you'd been born into your coven and they betrayed you, sacrificed your life - and a few other young practitioners for some ritual. Your experiences on the other side had been harrowing and it left you with a healthy helping of dubiety for your entire species. You were a lone witch on the cold streets of Los Angeles. It wasn't safe to be alone, but you'd been convinced it was more dangerous otherwise. 

So quiet you were invisible, you were aware of more than most. And, as a witch, that had already been the case. As you were accustomed to the ways of LA, having moved here over a decade ago, you walked the roads freely, travelled anywhere you liked. Having honed the powers you had already been taught, you were a force to be reckoned with. 

You'd run across a few warlocks who tried to keep you off "their turf" and they soon learned to leave you be. You were one with the universe in ways they could not imagine. The mere wind following your lead had scared them silly; the lightning was just for laughs. Vampires roamed on occasion, but they couldn't touch you for some reason. You warded them off. There were a few locations you never visited due to the dark energy. Things happened and sometimes it's unavoidable. You could never walk away from someone in need. And somehow, you were always where you were needed. 

You knew better than to always interfere. You could easily make something worse, but there wasn't much worse than the Hotel Cortez. It bugged you, that demonic prison. Guests came in every day and fewer came out. You couldn't say why you staked it out that day. Sometimes, the sunlight glittering off that cursed building hypnotized you, like it was tempting you inside. Your feet stayed planted though your eyes were distracted by the taxi pulling up. 

A powerful presence stepped from the vehicle, dressed up in start red and black. Her studded leather jacket popped by the red dye in her dark curls. She stared up at the shining windows much like you had. You felt her, and it terrified you. Both for yourself and for the little witch about to wander into shark-infested waters. She thought it was just a pool, where she was protected by chlorine, and no fins shown until it was too late. 

"Don't go to the Cortez," you shouted across the empty street. 

Queenie turned around and saw an equally vacant area. Even you were gone. Without proof, she assumed it was her advanced intuition, but she was sent to investigate. Queenie stepped inside and called out for any employees. 

*

Your mysterious Salem witch never came out. After a week, you decided a regular run-through of the halls was necessary. You did this on occasion to ensure the hotel hadn't opened a direct portal to Hell. And now you sought out your kind. The walls screamed for release, the number of essences far outnumbering the amount of rooms. But one particular room screeched like a witch on fire. You didn't enter, didn't make yourself known. Instead, you knelt on the floor, five fingertips on the rancid carpet. 

You saw flashes of a faux-vampire trying to kill the self-proclaimed human voodoo doll, her wounds healing until the original killer himself, the first owner of the Hotel Cortez, James Patrick March killed the witch. You hated that man, a one-way vessel of evil; he just took and took, took lives, hope, and goodness and it just rotted away inside of him. But the excess blood the blood-whore didn't consume had flown freely onto the mattress, then dripped onto the carpet. The already lead-heavy thick carpets were topped with beads of red, ruby droplets travelling under the door gap. They hovered around your palm, discreet for your exit. And no one saw the invisible little witch slip in and out of Hell Hotel. 

Back in your apartment, you got out supplies you hadn't touched in years, bottling the blood. You might have been considered a prodigy in your home coven, but it had been a long time since your magic making days. It might take weeks for you to design a potion then craft a spell to extract a soul from Hell Hotel, even a sister witch. You'd have to play with the herbs and research your old journals, and you still weren't even sure how to free a soul from that prison.