Chapter 5 - The Hotel

The hallway outside was well lit and spacious, the creamy coloured wallpaper was stained only by a splash of blood. The carpet was spotless. Apart from the dead body. The only sounds that penetrated the calm silence where the chewing of flesh, the dripping of blood mixed with translucent slime and, "kekeke," the soft laugh of a Shadow.

Elena didn't wait for the Shadow to notice the new arrivals. A gust wind gathered and seemed to sharpen into a crescent blade shape, before flying towards the Shadow and decapitating it.

Elena, Rick, Chris, and Jason where unfazed and wordlessly walked towards the stairwell. Kyle and Quinn took a moment to take in the sight before hurrying to catch up.

The hotel consisted of three floors, each with four hallways in a square and two stairways in opposite corners.

When they reached the stairs, Elena turned around and said, "We'll split here, Chris, Kyle when you get to the other stairs bock it off with something to stop the Shadows from getting in through it."

"Okay," replied Chris.

Elena, Jason, Rick and Quinn then entered the stairway.

"Rick, Quinn," said Elena, "you two can go up first."

"Wait!" said Quinn. "Let me put my artifact on."

"Sure," said Elena, whilst inwardly thinking, 'shouldn't he have done that before we left the room?'

Quinn pulled out what looked to be a glove covered in white bandages, on the bandages where countless runes covering every inch of them. With a grin Quinn slipped the glove onto his right hand.

He then looked at Elena and said, "I'm all ready to go," promptly walking past her and up the stairs.

Rick then started walking after Quinn, however when he was passing Elena she grabbed his arm then looked him in the eyes for a second, before letting go. Rick stood still for another second then continued following after Quinn.

Elena then turned to Jason and simply said, "let's go."

Elena then walked down the stairs, wordlessly, Jason followed behind.

Once Elena got to the second she saw a Shadow. It stood there, unmoving, with blood dripping out its mouth. There was blood on the walls but no evidence of an actual body.

Silently Elena materialised a wind blade and decapitated the Shadow before it noticed them.

Instead of continuing down the stairs she stopped and waited for Jason to get to her before saying, "hey, Jason, what's it like being the son of the CEO of a mega corporation like the NEC."

Jason looked at Elena for a second before laughing slightly and saying, "I won't lie Elena, it's quite nice I have access to a lot of things most people wouldn't, although it can get quite stressful at times, after all my dad expects me to take over the company when I'm older so that puts quite a lot of pressure on me, I suppose you can relate to that though, miss heir to the Silver family?"

Elena smiled and said, "I suppose I can relate, Jason. Also, you didn't happen to bring one of those fancy new NEC guns with you?"

"As a matter of fact I did," Jason replied. "But what makes you think they can kill Shadows?"

"They run on a type of magic energy," said Elena. "I'd be disappointed if they couldn't kill Shadows."

Jason laughed again and said, "well you won't be disappointed."

Elena kept her smile and started walking down the stairs again.

As they reached the first floor, Elena felt the stairs tremble.

BANG!

"Shit."

...

Kyle watched as Elena, Jason, Rick and Quinn entered the stairway.

After they had left he turned to Chris and said, "follow my lead and we'll kick the Shadows asses!"

Chris looked at Kyle like he was an idiot.

However Kyle didn't notice and then said, "Elena may be calling the shots for now, but soon I'll be the alpha!"

Chris stared at Kyle and said, "are you stupid? How do you expect to lead anyone when you're so weak?"

Kyle's face twitched and he shouted, red-faced, "looks like I'll have to teach you a lesson!"

Kyle then jumped towards Chris, pulling back his arm to launch a powerful punch!

In response Chris pulled out his cross and said, "God protects."

Kyle's fist smashed into an invisible wall with a loud bang! His hand then rebounded backwards pulling him along with it.

"God punishes," said Chris.

"AAAAH!" Kyle screamed in agony, as he felt a mind numbing pain pierce his skull.

He collapsed to the ground and convulsed for five seconds before the pain finally receded. Kyle then looked up at Chris with tears in his eyes.

Chris stared back unflinchingly. "I hope you learn from this," he said.

Chris then turned to look towards the end of the hallway. It seemed that Kyle's screams had attracted some unwanted attention.

The unwanted attention came in the form of Shadows. Twelve of them. They came around the corner like a drunken mob, stumbling and tripping, however instead of being drunk on alcohol, it seemed they where drunk on blood. The beautiful and deadly red dripped out of their mouths. The blood formed a pool below them that reflected the Shadows, except that in the pool they where tainted by the scarlet red.

At the back of the horde a Shadow stood. This Shadow, however, had overgrown fingers that stretched all the way to the ground. As the Shadow moved its fingers left behind streaks of red goo on the carpet. When it saw Chris and Kyle, it raised a spindly finger and pointed at them. The red goo dropped off the end of its finger. It then let out a terrifying laugh, "kekekekeke!", and then started walking towards them with the rest of the mob following suite.

At the other end of the hall Kyle laughed and said, "that's a rank 3 Shadow! Ha, I'd like to see you kill it without my help!"

Chris completely ignored Kyle and threw his cross into the middle of the mob.

He then calmly said, "in God's domain monsters are purged."

A blinding white light emanated from the cross, completely cutting off all site in the hall. When the light receded the Shadows where nothing but ashes.

Kyle watched, speechless, as Chris walked over to the ashes picking up his cross from the middle of the pile.

Chris then said to Kyle, "get up we still need to clear this floor."

"R-right" said Kyle scrambling to his feet and jogging after Chris who had started walking away.

"Hey, Chris," said Kyle, "that was really a rank 3 Shadow, right?"

"Yes," Chris replied.

"But if you killed it so easily, does that mean you're a rank 4 Exorcist?" asked Kyle.

Chris simply nodded in response.

Kyle stayed silent for a few seconds before saying, "if you're rank 4 why is Elena in charge and not you? Is she rank 4 as well?"

"Elena is rank 3," said Chris, "she's leading because she took the initiative to do so and hasn't messed up so far."

Kyle thought for a few seconds before asking, excitedly, "If you can kill a rank 3 Shadow so quickly, does that mean you can kill a rank 4 quite easily?"

"No," answered Chris, firmly, "Shadows grow exponentially, I can handle ten rank 3 Shadows but one rank 4 would be a close fight. Its the same for humans as well. Because of this it's very difficult to beat someone of higher rank."

Kyle looked like he had more questions, however he was cut off by the building violently shaking.

BANG!

Something crashed onto the roof above them.

Chris let out a frown.