They stab it with their steely knives. #2

[ Seattle ]

[ Hotel Plaisance ]

Standing in front of the hotel, the trio composed of Hope, Alaric and Lizzie walks to the entrance. They enters, determined to venture inside and discover the reason they've come here.

Entering in the hall, slowly they explore. Outside, the rains begins to fall, the wind throwing drops against the windows masking the sounds produced by their footsteps.

" Uh.. Shouldn't somebody be here ? " Lizzie asks, all the while searching the receptionist's desk for clues.

" Look at the missing keys, we need to memorize each number then we should go to each occupied chambers. " Hope suggests while walking closer to her.

" Clever. " Alaric says as he also gets close to the counter to look at the numbers. " 88, 38, 63 and 72. " He reads the number out loud.

" I take the 38 ! " Lizzie exclaims.

" Hope you take the 63, I'll do the 72. Once we're done with our respective room we meet at 88. Okay ? " Alaric exposes his plan and the girls agrees so the three heads to the elevator.

Lizzie is the first one to gets out.

She arrives directly in a hallway painted black with white flowers patterns. Hanging on the walls at regular intervals, light spots in the shape of a moon crescent illuminates four doors on each sides and one in front of her at the end of the hallway. The doors numbered from 30 to 39.

Once in front of the number 38, she looks at the trinket around her right wrist, she touches it with affection while rembering the day her godmother Bonnie gave it to her. Her hand on it warms up and begins to slightly glow reddish.

Lizzie, like Hope is not ordinary, however she is neither a vampire, a werewolf and neither is she totally a witch. She belongs to a very small club, the siphonners, as of today the species counts only 3 members, to Alaric knowledge, one of them lock in a adequate prison.

" Aperi Mihi. " She recites the incantation while her hand that absorbed the magic contained in the bracelet is laying on the double-locked handle.

This is her species unique and more than useful capacity, she can absorb magic and then she can use it as she please to cast spells.

She opens the door without difficulty and enters. Lizzie sinks into the room, she notices the bed is made and the rest is clean, nothing seems to be out of place. Even so, she conscientiously makes another round around the room before leaving back for the elavator.

Meanwhile, three floors higher, Hope search her assigned room.

Unlike her, Hope was right away confronted with something unusual. A putrid smell sting her nostrils, it reminds her of the smell of the withered bodies of a dozen vampires that she has unfortunately one day smelled.

While walking around the room, she quickly comes across the origin of this nauseating odor. A man's body gnawed to the bone by a greenish liquid that oozes from his empty eye sockets.

But the terrible sight doesn't stop at that, something reptilian is lying on the floor, half-tangled around the body as it's jaw is dislocated in order to swallow the man's bones, one of his leg and both of his arms have already been eaten.

8 red eyes with slit pupils moves on her and stay fixed, unblinking. Slowly she takes a step back, then another followed by another until she almost reach back the opened door.

" Isss it you ? Have you the audacity to come back ? No, no, you ssstink a whole different- " The creature speaks as it's long forked tongue wriggles in the open air. " Three opposssite facet sstruck on the sssame coin. " It adds before abruptly launching itself on its 6 scaly legs towards her at full speed.

" Phesma- " Hope begins to cast an offensive spell but she's suddenly grab by the waist from behind.

She's about to nudge the person or thing pulling her when her eyes cross with Alec's grey ones, he pushes her away and slams the door shut.

The demon behind it crashes against the door and they're both forced to apply all their strenght to holds it back safely behind the door.

" Who ar- " She is interrupted again by him, but this time it's his actions that makes her quiet. He stops helping her hold the door and he tears open the skin at the level of his index finger with his teeth then distributes it on the door in a circle with a symbol in its center that she's never seen.

" Tuentes oppositum malo, protege continent intra arma, copiosa. " He whispers the spells, the blood briefly lighting up proving that it work to her.

" We need to leave. " Alec says, urgency in his tone. " It won't hold for long and I certainly don't wish to face this thing frontally. Do you ? " he adds rhetorically when he see her unconvinced face then he starts to trot to the elevator.

" I didn't come alone ! We have to go find my friends, maybe all together we'll have a chance against whatever it is. " She explains to him as she follows behind.

" It's an Empu'sa, a remnant of an ancient race that now lives in the empty space between dimensions. They are always watching, endlessly dreaming to satiate their hunger with humans, they observe, always. Fortunately they are unable to do so from their limbo. " In a few words, Alec sums up what he knows about the origin of the creature despite the violents noises coming from the room 63.

Fortunately, the elevator's doors closes and grants them an illusionary safe place, the playful melody soothing their nerves as they cautiously gauge each other.

Hope can't help but dwell on him, his dimples only showing when he speak, his brown hair styles backwards that curled slightly and his gray eyes flecked with green.

" How do you know so much about it ? And I would also like to know what you were doing there.. " She asks in a inquiring tone, her body strategically sliding to a corner of the elevator shaft, just in case.

" I thought it was obvious after my little magic trick on the door. " He answers with raised eyebrows. " I'm into witchcraft if it was not fairly self-explanatory. " He adds, his comment frustrating her so much that the build up of negative emotions makes her eyes flash yellow for a second.

" Is it supposed they explain anything ? " She says but is ignored by him " Press up the 8th floor button, we were supposed to meet up there. " Hope adds while ignoring her suspicion about him for now, she'll have the time to question him later, she thinks while Alec press it as she asked.

" We could introduce ourselves. It's the least you can do after saving someone and be saved by said person. " He throws into the air as they climb higher and higher, the melody never stopping.

" Hope Marshall. " She ends up answering after making him wait until the 7th.

" Alec. " He responds, she finds it unjust that he didn't say his last name. A second later the ding signal them that they have reach their destination.

The last floor is different, there is only one chamber, more accurately a penthouse, they passes through the fully equipped kitchen and stops in the living room where they find Lizzie judging the view, the black leather sofa and the granite fireplace with her unchangeable take on what is good taste.

" Seriously Hope ? I leave you alone for a quarter of an hour and you find yourself a new Landon ? " Lizzie's mocking voice is not enough to completely hides the relief she feels to see Hope safe.

" Where is your father ? " Hope asks worryingly, instantly Lizzie playful face change to a colder mask hiding the fear, anxiety and anger.

" I.. I don't know. Why ?! " She answers, her voice quivering with panic.

" There is something here, a- " Hope turns to Alec with a little bit of embarrassment. " Empu'sa. " He helps her. " Yes, that. It's a sort of monster, it's dangerous in this hotel we need to find you're dad, right now ! " She finishes then grabs Lizzie by the hand before running towards the stairs adjacent to the elavator.

While lamenting his decision to come back here, Alec follows them, telling himself that he will leave once the attractive blonde girl's father is found.

The three anormal teenagers rush down the stairs, Hope easily takes the front over Lizzie and him. They reach the 7th floor and the two girls hurry up to the door numbered 72.

As they hurry in, Alec follow but more slowly, if the Empu'sa catch him by surprise he knows what to expect. A stomach full of corrosive acid.

" Slow down both of you, we need to stay together to leave. It probably isn't trapped anymore Hope, now that we've disturbed it, it won't let us leave this damned hotel kindly, it's going to hunt us. " He tries to reason with the girls, and especially Hope who've seen the demonic creature.

" Are you going to help us or keep complaining ! This is my dad, I won't give up on him. " Lizzie answers pissed off, she begins to feel the magic she absorbed earlier bubbling up, a furious urge to scream and explode almost overwhelms her. It is the desire to save her father and the presence of Hope that allows her to face it.

He ask himself why they can't see what he sees, the father is dead, they should abandon this place immediately, it won't follow outside. However he reveals none of these thoughts to the brave young women in front of him, he just nods.

" Did you try to contact him with your phone ? " Lizzie asks Hope while turning over each rooms and objects in the chamber.

" Useless, higher than the 6th floor the network does not pass. I think it's a kind of a "vintage" package for the clients. " Alec immediately cuts short this option.

" So what are we doing ? This place is huge, might as well find a needle in a haystack. " Hope says pessimistically.

" You know very well where he is. It's obvious. " He adds while sharing a complicit look with her. " Room 38. " She says as if she wish it wasn't true.

" Then what are we waitin' for exactly ? " Lizzie interrupts them before walking out for the elavator this time.

Once more, Alec and Hope find themselves in the elavator shaft, surrounded by the insufferable melody and accompanied by Lizzie.

He press the 3th floor button then shift back to lean his back against the metal wall.

" Lizzie, is that right ? " He asks her then move on once he has the confirmation. " Your father, is he a warlock ? A vampire ? "

" No, he's human. " She answers honestly but is surprise by the cynical face he makes. " Why ? " she asks.

" I was just curious. " He simply replies, alas for him the two girls realize that he doesn't think so less.

The ding announcing they arrives keeps them from acting on these doubts. They know that every seconds counts, they enter the dark room, just lit by the opening of the door.

Paralyzed on the bed, Alaric's clothes melt against his skin, he can't scream, can't move. His torment is silent and the agony bitter. A hole in his hand shows two of his knuckles bones and a gash on his thigh let blood flows into the white sheets of the bed where Alec slept last night.

" Dad ! " Lizzie shouts then runs before jumping on the bed. She roughly grabs his head to see him. " Dad ! Dad ! Dad ? " Her cries gets lower at the end, sadder too.

" The poison secreted by an Empu'sa has a supposed paralyzing quality. You're father is not dead, merely incapable of moving. " Alec clarifies in the hope of reassuring Lizzie but his relative indifference to his survival is obvious.

What's more he did her a service by sparing her certain details, such as the fact that the poison also has the effect of increasing sensitivity to external stimulus.

" How can we help him ? " Hope asks him as she advances to stand at his side, the predatory rebound in her steps making him think reflexively for a second that she was going to attack him.

" Saliva. " Alec answers as he watches Lizzie holding her bracelet in her hand

" What ? " Hope retorts a little bit dumbfoundly, as she wipes the sweet from from her forehead caused by the abnormal heat in the room.

" We need the saliva of the Empu'sa to rid his organism of the toxin, he must swallow it for it to function. " He explains to her, smiling when he sees how her nose wrinkles when she have a disgusted face.

" Somnum et quietem bene meruit, liberate animum tuum a carnalibus passionibus. " Lizzye cast the spell as she holds her hands above father head who's eyes are staring at one fixed point as immobile as the rest of his body.

" What did you do ? " Alec asks curiously while she stands up from the soiled bed.

" I put his conscience asleep so that he's no longer a prisoner of his own flesh. " She answers concisely then close her father eyelids with her hand. " Let's go kill this monster. " she adds coldly while stepping out from the chamber.

" Did she hear what I said ? We need its saliva... " Alec says to Hope with his habitual raised eyebrows.

" She understood. Let's go. " She answers then walks behind Lizzie, he follows behind stealing a glimpse or two at their curves.

" Where could it be if it isn't in the room ? " She asks him however he also ignores where it could have hidden itself.

While they are trying to deduce its location, Lizzie presses the button to open the elevator when suddenly, without any warning, all the murals light spots goes out, leaving only the dim lighting of the emergency exit as a source of light.

" Alec get down ! " Hope shouts to him, as a werewolf she have the advantage of seeing in the dark. While Lizzie and Alec are blind, she can see it.

Its scales as thick as leather covering large legs ending it four stingers pointed at the same direction in a spear point, ready to pierce Alec's head.

Fortunately Hope's timely intervention gives him the opportunity to get closer to the floor and as such he avoids an assured fatal blow.

" Phesmatos Incendia ! " She casts a spell immediately after that causes 3 of its legs to burn in flames. The Empu'sa hiss from the pains and respond with a stream of poisonous acid that threatens to touch the three of them.

" Uicta fatiscat, inanis. " Alex recites and a shimmering, translucent barrier blocks the dangerous stream of acid in its path, it seems to hit a wall then falls on the floor, burning the carpet and attacking the wooden floor under it.

" Hope give me your hand ! " Lizzie Exclaims then she grabs Hope's outstretched hand to siphon enough magic to not be a burden in this fight.

The invocated creature legs have stopped burning, the viscous liquid covering its scales was able to snuff out the fire however large patches of scales are burned off, one leg have even been rendered useless.

It's now slower and this gives an excellent opportunity for Alec.

" Get it on its knees ! " He shouts for the two girls behind him and sees from the corner of his eyes Hope making a tightening motion with her fist.

" Motus. " He hears her then see three more of its legs snap like twigs under weight and it falls on its last 2 front leg.

Alec puts his hands on the two walls enclosing the long corridor then he cast his spell. " Inanimeta materia, obedire. "

The walls on both sides of the Empu'sa transmutes and streches out to imprison its reptile head in a gash embrace made of cemented bricks.

" One of you need to collect some saliva. Watch out for its remaining leg, it can do dommage. " He says in authoritative voice while focusing his attention to maintaining the spell without letting an ounce of leeway for it to slither out from its bonds decorated on its length with floral motifs.

Lizzie is the one who takes care of it, in a little piece of plastic that comes from her shoes that she has partially destroyed, she collects drops of saliva which reveals extremely hard due to the forked tongue that fights her and the teeth she have to avoid.

" Swear on your lives that you won't tell anyone about this. Never ! " She says desperately to them but nevertheless she persists, ready to do anything to save her dad, as if she would for her twin sister.