The Ghost Suite (ATTN Kota)

Paris paces back and forth barefoot across the soft floral patterned carpet of one of the presidential suites in the luxurious Omni Shorham hotel wearing only a half-buttoned white shirt draped over his toned torso and a pair of slate gray slacks. He steps up to a large window with a commanding view of the city and runs his hands through his unkempt brown hair as he looks out at the glistening lights of the city scattered as far as the eye can see. After being confined here for several weeks restless hardly begins to describe how he feels, as he moves about the room with all the grace and pent-up rage of a great caged cat. He would leave but the fae have placed sentries outside his room in the hall and on the roof, and at the entrances of the building, which, along with the fact that he was under constant surveillance of a powerful unseen spirit tended to complicate things.

He looks up towards the front entrance of the suite when he hears footsteps in the hall. A card slides through the lock and the door opens to admit the slender, stylish Mr. Connaught and his black-suited goblin guards on either side a familiar face in tow. The last to enter the suite is the fiery young musician Paris had befriended, accidentally turned, and then abandoned, Kota. Paris stiffens as she enters and averts his gaze. For a long time the room is filled with the most awkward of silences.

Connaught was the first to speak, “Well, Mr. Triste, your young accomplice has fulfilled her end of the deal so you are now free to go. You are both welcome to remain in Winter’s Domain as long as you follow the rules of the Unseelie Accords and do nothing to act against the Winter Court. You may now collect your things.” Having delivered his message the pale, dark-haired Regent of Winter bows respectfully and takes his leave.

Paris returns his bow and watches as the bodyguards turn and leave after their boss leaving him alone with Kota. After a long moment of silence so thick you could cut it’s heart out with a spoon he looks at her with his shining silver-blue eyes and finally says, “If you want to hit me again, go ahead…”

"I ought to hit you," she glares at him, arms crossed, " but i don't want to." She crosses the short distance between them and hugs him close to her.

"I'm just glad you're safe. I was worried about you. I thought they might hurt you."

A look of surprise flashes across Paris’ face as instead of the expected backlash he receives a hug. He wraps his arms around her feeling the coldness of her body, another painful reminder of what he has done to her. Despite the pain it is good to feel her embrace again, though, to know that she still cares for him. He holds her close for a long moment, taking in the sweet scent of her hair.

Eventually he lets go of her partially, holding her at arm’s length so he can look down into her eyes. “I can’t tell you how worried I was that something would happen to you,” he says with a sigh, “especially knowing that I brought this on you. It seems all I have brought you is trouble. Still, you still care for me. You were sent to face a giant monster from another dimension and yet you were concerned for me? You deserve much better than how I have treated you.”

He turns away from her, sliding his hand down from her arm to grip her hand and leading her towards the large window overlooking the city, with hits millions of lights giving form to the darkness beyond. “In fact you deserve better than everything that has happened to you,” Paris says, a length, as he stands there gazing out. “I have destroyed your life, and for that I will never forgive myself. I will never be able to make up for it either, I thought the best thing I could do for you was to get away from you, but that only brought you more pain, I see that now.” He turns his head to look at Kota again, “I cannot undo what I have done, but promise you from now on I will be here for you, whatever you need, I will do all within my power.

Kota looks at the hand in her's, then out at the city, "I know it's gonna sound weird, but I can't hate you for any of this, I have a nice place now, it's above the studio that I work at ."

The tattooed girl leans her back against the window, "You should move in with me, I can tell about my journey... how I figured it out- How I control it, and you can explain this whole wolf thing to me more- I'm tired of having to buy new clothes... My style isn't cheap you know." the dark haired girl chuckled. Then looks into his eyes, "And you can tell me how you came to be the last of your kind."

With Kota leaning back against the window in front of him Paris leans over her, bracing himself with his left hand on the glass of the window while his right reaches up and caresses her cheek, tracing the contours of her deceptively sweet and innocent-looking face with his long fingers.

“If that is what you wish, I will do it,” he says softly, as he watches the light reflecting in her silver-flecked eyes, “you make it all the easier for me to submit, since what you request is what my heart desires too, although my head tells me I have already harmed you enough and should stay away.

“But you’re right,” he says in whisper, with his lips close to her ear, “We do have so much to talk about.”

Movement in the woods below outside the window catches his eye over Kota’s shoulder, and Paris suddenly falls silent. “Turn around slowly and look down at the trees,” he whispers, and when she does she can see several figures circling around among the trees in the wooded area just beyond the gardens. “The Red Court,” Paris intones, ‘they have us surrounded. They have been watching all the exits for some days now, somehow they learned I was here. We’re going to have to find another way out of here.”

"Red Court? Like Kyra?" she turns around, and looks out the window as well. "Why are they after you?" Her silver blue eyes dart about silently counting the flashing movements.

"Better yet," she turns to him some, "How will we escape from here in tack?"

“The Red Court has hated the Silver Court for centuries before I was born,” Paris explains in his musical baritone voice with his proper English accent. “They are a separate breed of vampire from us, hideous bat-demon creatures that wear human disguises; it is because of them that you and I are the last of the Silver Court. This all probably sounds crazy, but I imagine with what you’ve seen in the past couple weeks it shouldn’t be too hard to accept. Your friend Kyra, has been infected by them and will become one of them once she gives into her thirst and kills a mortal, at that time she will become a monster like them.

“The question is,” he muses “how do we get past them. One option that comes to mind is the spirit who haunts this hotel. They do call these “the Ghost Suite”, after all, and I know there is something here because of the mysterious frosty drafts and the intermittent flickering of the chandelier lights I have felt and seen while I’ve been here. From what I gather this set of rooms has been the site of paranormal activity since the thirties when its original occupants, Mr. and Mrs. Doherty, partial owners of the hotel, vacated it following two unexplained tragic events. From what I gathered the first occurred late one evening when the Doherty’s maid, who was in the rooms alone phoned down for help, complaining that she was not feeling well. When the staff arrived she was already dead. Later that year the Doherty’s daughter was found dead in the suite also of unknown causes. I have been told that afterwards the suite remained vacant for decades but many guests and hotel staff had heard banging and other strange noises coming from the empty rooms, and seen unexplained phenomena such as lights turning on and off, doors opening and closing, and furniture moving all of its own accord. And of course much of this is said to occur about 4 AM, the time of Juliette Brown’s death.

“Only recently were the rooms refurbished and once again let out,” he concludes “with the strange deaths now so distant the horror of the past and strange events that followed serve to add mystique to the room rather than scare guests off as it once did. At any rate, there is doubtless something to this story, as I have sensed some unknown presence here myself. If we could make contact with it, perhaps it would aid us. I imagine it might know a secretive way out of here. The question is, how does one reach speak with a ghost?”

"They're lucky if nothing has been let that shouldn't be out even abandon areas with undisturbed area's can call for the scariest, and darkest of things. A psychic of any sort would help, or a recorder.... sometimes that helps...."

The dark haired girl blushed some, "I'm a big 'Ghost Adventures' fan.... I watched a lot.... but um..." she turns and goes and sits on the edge of the bed, "I don't have one or any of the equipment that they use. or very many connections.... Nor even the numbers of people I do know... I'll i have is Thomas's address." She pulls on the chain connected to her wallet and pulls it out.

“Unfortunately an address is not going to do us a whole lot of good at the moment, since we can’t exactly go to him.” Paris rubs his temples as if trying to make his brain work faster. “I don’t see how we can get a hold of this Thomas person at the moment, unless you have the address for his voice box as well.” His brow forrows as he knows he has said something wrong but isn’t sure what, “that is, I mean, what do the call them? Phone, isn’t it? The address for his phone.

“There must be a way to contact a spirit without all the fancy equipment, people have doing it since ancient times,” he goes on, thoughtfully. “Of course, one needs to know what one is doing. Perhaps if we had a little more information about the victim; for instance, her real name, we could use that call her? Did they ever do anything like that in any of the ‘Ghost Adventures’ you have seen?”

"A phone number Paris, it's called a phone number," she informs him while trying not to laugh.

"And no, he doesn't have one, something about electronics not working right for him. If there is a way to send a singing telegram or something to him... That might work and you mean a 'Seance'? or with a Ouija board? Neither of those can say if we're talking to the right person that we want to and Ouija boards- they are quite powerful and can cause things to come that you don't want to come."

Kota quickly pulls out her phone and headphones, "I have a recorder! I forgot there's one on my phone! But everything has to be quiet, and i mean quiet. First we should write down the questions so when we're playing it back we can fill in the answers if there are any and try to remember the names of any who died up here."

As Kota pulls out her phone it suddenly rings. A little baffled, she answer it to hear a deep, unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line, asking where Paris is.

She hands the phone to Paris, who handles it rather awkwardly but eventually figures out where he should be speaking into. Kota hears Paris explain to the mysterious caller what their situation is and that they could use some help extracting themselves.

When he hangs up Paris turns back to Kota, a gleam in his quicksilver eyes. "Time to go." he says, without any more explanation.

They leave the room and Paris heads down the hall with quick, lithe movements, not unlike the graceful jaunt of a wolf when it wishes to move fast but not overly so. He avoids the elevator, leading her down the stairs, that wind their way down floor by floor. When they finally come to ground floor they head out through the hotel's grand lobby, walking right past the tall, finely dressed, dark-haired gentleman known as Mr. Cannaught, who watches them with his keen, shining eyes, but makes no attempt prevent them from leaving.

As they reach the door the building shakes as if from the force of a distant explosion, and when the two of them step outside they see a strange orange glow emanating from the back side of the building and sirens already blaring in the distance.

Without stopping Paris continues walking, taking Kota's hand and leading her straight across the street, and on down the side-walk away from the hotel.

Glancing behind them Kota could see, as they drew further from the hotel, that woods behind it were erupting into flame with gigantic plumes of fire leaping into the night sky dangerously close to the historic hotel. Suddenly a enormous column of inky black shadow pierces the flames and engulfs the woods in darkness. A second later a gust of cold air hits Kota, making her shiver and pull her coat around herself tighter, and street lights around them strangely flash and go out. By the time this has all taken place the fire in the woods behind the hotel has vanished and the night about them is darker and colder than ever.

In response to Kota's questioning glance Paris simply nods towards a figure standing on the street corner ahead of them. The man is not incredibly tall, but has rather a stocky athletic build: his toned musculature showing through the black sweatpants and hoodie he is wearing. A strong, handsome face accentuated by a black beard and dreads watches them from beneath his hood, as Paris and Kota swiftly approach.

"Kota, meet Ren, our distraction," Paris says quickly. "You'll forgive, I hope, the informality of this introduction." He glances back down the way they had come at several dark figures moving swiftly towards them from several blocks away.

Just then the creak and hiss of a metro-bus's breaks announce it's arrival, and with a nod to his companions Paris promptly steps aboard it. The bus pulls away and a moment later the vampires arrive on the street corner and find it empty.

Kota looks back at the anger looking figures behind them. She looks at the mysterious new comer across the bus aisle in front of her. Her long striped pigtails swayed a little from the bumpiness of the bus. "So...your name is Ren?"

Ren nods, locking eyes with the pretty woman in front of him.

"Nice to meet you." He looks over at Paris and smirks slightly. "I hope this wasn't overdone," he says in a surprisingly calm voice, "but a distraction is a distraction, right?"

Sitting down with a fluid motion, Paris glance out the window for a moment, then turns his eyes that almost seem to glow like the silvery full moon back on Ren and Kota.

“You were just in time,” Paris replies with a slight grin spreading from the corner of his lips, “We were just about to hold a séance.”

Kota slowly blinked her silver rimmed blue eyes at Ren before turning to Paris, "There was no grantee that we would have gotten anything." She rubs her neck some, making a bit of her tattoo show some. "Or even the person you were looking for."

She looked back at Ren, "Did you have something to do with those fires?"

"Perhaps," Ren replies with a shrug, sitting across from the duo. "I was asked by your friend here to provide you two with a nice little diversion so you could escape."

“I recommend we stay low and stick together,” he says in his smooth, sophisticated English accent. “That is, until we may determine whether or not the Red Court are still following us. Tomorrow I've a gallery opening, which I still intend to be present at, so if there are any minions who have put together who I am they will be there. We should know where we stand after that. We shall simply have to be ready for anything.”

Kota looks confused at Paris, "You have a gallery showing? And not to mention I have work tomorrow- I have a very large and long tattoo that I'm going to outline. That takes a long time to do. So if we're sticking together- you two are coming with me." She crosses her arms frimly.