Blood of The Rose

Chapter 19: A Spirited Adventure, Part III

Ocean House Hotel

The floor beneath the pair of fledglings collapsed, sending them both hurtling down to the floor below to end up unceremoniously dropped onto their asses. Recovering first, Ruby groaned as she sat up, rubbing the back of her neck where it had impacted against something hard on the way down.

Weiss let out a soft moan of her own as she struggled to her feet. "I'm finding the physicality of this adventure to be rather undesirable."

"No pain, no gain!" the brunette quipped, standing up and peering around the gloomy room. They had ended up in a lounge, dimly lit by the bulbs that were still functioning. Bottles of alcohol lined the wall behind a bar, small tables with chairs on the one side of the room and booths on the other. The door leading out and presumably to the lobby area was boarded up tight. Ruby pointedly ignored the candle flickering on a table in the far corner, dismissing it as either an illusion or just another parlor trick of the ghost, instead leaning over the counter where another newspaper rested. "Murder Suicide! Ocean House Killer Possibly Responsible For Inferno!"

"Ya think?" Ruby sighed in muted exasperation. "So, any ideas where to go from here, Weiss?"

The brunette turned to spot her partner considering the wall behind the bar. There was a sliding door inset just next to the counter.

Ruby stepped up next to her. "What's that?"

"A dumbwaiter," Weiss replied pensively.

"A what now?"

"It's used to ferry things from the kitchen, likely below us."

"Sooo we ride it down?"

Weiss's left eye twitched slightly. "Any better ideas?"

"Nope." Ruby let out another sigh. "I'll go first."

She crawled into the dumbwaiter. Weiss closed the door behind her, flipping the switch to send her down. Ruby had what seemed like an eternity to contemplate the foolhardiness of putting herself into such a tight, enclosed space. A recently watched movie came to mind, though with that the girl had secreted herself into a laundry chute, which opened eventually to drop her into a barbed-wire filled tunnel… Wincing at the memory, Ruby drummed her fingers restlessly against her thigh.

It took probably only a handful of minutes for the dumbwaiter to halt once more, enough time for the brunette to once again appreciate the general lack of sweat, pounding heart, or adrenaline due to her new status as a vampire. She dropped out the door and into a large kitchen, crouching warily as the mini-elevator moved back up. She waited after it came to a stop for a count of thirty before calling it down again. It wasn't long before Weiss slid out to crouch next to her.

"Now what?" the other fledgling whispered.

Ruby shrugged, finally taking the time to examine their surroundings in more detail. It was a large industrial kitchen with giant ranges in the middle and large ovens along one of the walls. Shelves with all sorts of dangerous-looking objects lined the other side of the kitchen, pots and pans and knives and jars.

A soft, ghostly voice suddenly whispered, drifting past the fledglings like gossamer strands on an ethereal wind. "Help me…"

"This is a very bad place for us to be," Ruby murmured.

"Agreed," Weiss whispered back, her voice harsh and tense. "See an exit?"

The spirit whispered to them once again, just as soft and wraithlike. "He's coming…"

Ruby nodded rapidly in regards to her companion's question, silver eyes darting about nervously. "Noticed one on the other side of these ovens. We just need to… Oh, crap."

The objects in the room began to vibrate and glow a menacing purple. Before either one could move, the ranges flared up with a whoosh, flames licking at the ceiling. Pots and lids flew across the room, doing their best to brain the two fledglings.

"Move!" Weiss screamed, ducking and covering the back of her head and neck with her arms.

They took off, crouched down as much as possible. As they passed a countertop, Ruby noticed a small red book that looked to be decidedly out of place. She swerved, plucking it up and taking a pan in her good shoulder for her efforts, but then soon enough she was flying through the next room to land against Weiss in a tangle of limbs. The other young Kindred scrambled to her feet, throwing the door closed just as a barrage of knives clattered against it.

Ruby sat up, panting, before she suppressed the unnecessary and reflexive action. She knew her eyes were just as wild-looking as Weiss'. "So I guess he's stepped up his game some, huh?"

Weiss nodded numbly as she crawled across the floor to sit against the wall next to the brunette. "It would seem so. Perhaps we've managed to piss him off as much as he has done for us."

The brunette fledgling snickered softly. "It's a nice thought, anyway." Holding up the book, she offered her friend a small smirk. "Picked something up, might be useful."

The charred book, when opened, revealed itself to be a diary.

"Jackpot," Ruby breathed. She read aloud the dated entries as Weiss leaned her head back against the wall wearily with her eyes closed.

05/30/1958 - Just arrived here, at the Ocean House. We have a week-long holiday here in Santa Monica, and Ed has booked us a room for the hotel's grand opening. It's a wonderful place, almost magical. The children have been swimming all afternoon.

05/31/1958 - The first two days have been almost perfect, except that Ed can't seem to stop asking about the locket I received from my mother. He seems to think it was sent to me by some other admirer. Ed can be sweet, but sometimes his jealousy can get the better of him. Hopefully, he'll feel better tomorrow.

06/01/1958 - Sun is out today, not a cloud in the sky. Ed seems a little on edge, keeps guessing as to who my "new boyfriend" is. Silly Ed.

06/03/1958 - There was a picnic for the hotel guests this morning… quite a grand affair. Ed is in a dark mood. I don't know what I can do to reassure him that he is my one and only love. The only time he seemed to brighten up was when he was speaking to the groundskeeper. Boys and their tools…

06/04/1959 - We only have two days left, and thank God we're finally going home. Ed won't speak to me or the children, and I've found him more than once in the bathroom holding the locket and staring at it. I'm afraid he's suffered some sort of breakdown. I've told him we can go home, but he just shakes his head. He won't look at me. I just want to go home.

06/05/1958 - Ed left early this morning, and I haven't seen him since. If I haven't seen him in another hour, I'm going to call the hotel manager. Against my better wishes, Ed Jr. went to look for him downstairs in the basement. I'm going to send Tiffany down to fetch him, it… wait… someone is knocking at the door…

Oh my God, Ed covered in blood… coming to kill me… locked myself in the bathroom, he's gone crazy… he keeps shouting we'll be together forever and he'll never let me go… someone please hel-

Ruby sighed as she closed the book. "Can't read the rest, it just kinda trails off at the end of the page."

Opening her eyes, Weiss gently took the book from her partner, turning it over in her hand thoughtfully. "I don't believe this is what we need, though."

"No?"

The pale Kindred shook her head slowly. "There's no energy to it, we'll know when we find something significant."

Ruby let out a small, morose sigh. "Shit. Okay, then…"

The room they were in was lined with empty shelves, but higher up was what seemed to be a grating for a vent. Ruby shrugged as she clambered back to her feet once more. "Worth a try, I guess," she muttered.

She got her fingers under the grating and pulled. It parted from the wall with a screech of tortured metal and she quickly dropped it to the side.

Peering into the opening, on her tiptoes, Ruby let out a little hum. "Yup, it's a vent."

"Can you tell where it goes?" Weiss asked.

Ruby shook her head. "Nope."

"And I expect you're suggesting we crawl through there?"

The brunette smirked slightly over her shoulder. "Yup."

Weiss rolled her eyes in resignation. "Fine, lead the way."

She entered the vent, crawling on all fours and with the other fledgling right behind her. Ruby came to a halt at every bend to check around the corner cautiously. The first time it happened, Weiss bumped her forehead unceremoniously into her butt. With a murmured apology she shuffled back a bit, keeping a bit more separation between them after that.

As they crawled, the woman's voice whispered past them once again. "Be careful…"

Ruby offered the spirit a snort in reply. "Yeah, I'm tryin', lady, believe me, I'm tryin'..."

They reached the end of the vent to come across another grate. Ruby turned around with some difficulty in order to kick out with her feet. The view afforded to them once the metal clattered out was that of an elevator shaft, illuminated by familiar red lighting. The brunette poked her head out, peering upwards to see the bottom of an elevator several floors up. Down below was a relatively short drop with an alcove directly across where the emergency ladder ran up the side of the shaft.

The brunette pulled back. "I don't like this," she whispered.

Weiss peered over her shoulder, a matching frown on her elegant features. "No, I imagine not."

"Right, lemme drop down first, make sure it's clear, okay? Be ready to move, one way or another."

The platinum-haired fledgling gave her a determined nod. Ruby turned and dropped to the floor in a wary crouch. As soon as her red converse shoes hit the ground there was a creak of metal before a sharp snap sounded from up above her.

"Fuck a duck!" the girl squawked, diving for the other side. She made it just in time, pulling her feet back right as the elevator crashed down. Dazed at her close call, Ruby rapidly patted at herself, checking her body parts. To her relief, she was all intact still.

"Ruby!" Weiss cried out anxiously from above. "Ruby, are you alright?"

It took her another second to respond shakily. "Yeah, I'm okay, you?"

Weiss barked out a short laugh. "Aside from my heart almost beating again for the first time in years, yes. I'll crawl across the top and join you."

Ruby waited where she was at the bottom of the ladder well until she could see Weiss peer down at her, pale blue eyes wide and worried-looking.

She spread her arms out, trying to grin cheekily though she was pretty sure it came off more sickly than anything. "See, all in one piece."

Weiss could only shake her head, half-exasperated and half-wondering. They began to climb up the ladder, though this time the white-clad fledgling insisted on taking the lead. Ruby chuckled softly from below as she placed one hand after the other on the rusty rungs. "Yeah, I knew you cared."

"Oh, do shut up, you dolt," Weiss snorted in amusement without looking back.

As they climbed, they heard the ghostly voice again. "Keep looking…"

"Oh, we'll keep looking, alright," Ruby grumbled irritably. "You tell your hubby I'm gonna look for a way to shove his fireaxe straight up his ass, ghost or no. He's gonna be shitting ghost splinters, ya hear me?"

Weiss snorted again, louder this time as she paused in her climbing. "It is very difficult to proceed when you go on like that."

"Sorry, I'll behave," the red-hooded girl grinned. "For now."

They kept moving up, all the way to the top floor where the elevator was previously resting before its near-murderous descent. The door there was partially open. Weiss easily leapt across and into the opening, while on her turn Ruby almost missed her landing. She teetered backwards, flailing wildly to regain her balance, but her partner lunged forward to catch her by the hood and drag her inside.

Ruby laughed lightly in relief. "See, where'd I be without you, Weiss?"

Her friend shook her head with an answering smile. "Likely a dark stain at the bottom of an elevator shaft."

"True enough, true enough."

The hallway they found themselves in was lit sporadically, perhaps only half of the hall lights working. As they poked their heads into each room along the sides, they noted that they were slightly smaller than the others they'd seen so far, with the beds all missing mattresses. A few of the rooms were boarded up, but for the most part, the floor they found themselves on was untouched. On their search through the rooms, the pair of fledglings found one that had an endtable with an open music box resting upon it. The empty jewelry container chimed softly as they approached before closing on its own. They glanced at each other before carefully looking it over but were unable to see or feel anything else remarkable about it.

Exiting the room, they rounded another corner. Weiss, in the lead still, was unexpectedly hit square in the face by a vase and went sprawling backwards. Ruby crouched over her in concern while the pale girl just stared up at the ceiling blankly.

"Weiss? Um… you okay, there?"

The fledgling in question hummed thoughtfully. "Ruby, I desire an adequately insulting name to confer upon our host." She bit the last word off as if it left a foul taste in her mouth.

Ruby sat cross-legged next to the prone girl, pretending to don a pensive expression. "Hmm… a good one… how about… fudge monkey asshat?"

Her friend giggled and shook her head as she sat up. "I suppose that will have to do."

They headed down the hall, Weiss remaining at the forefront but more cautious than before. Around the next corner was a table with a vase that they were about to skip over until they spotted yet another newspaper.

Ruby chuckled quietly. "I like the way she's leaving us clues."

"I'd prefer perhaps some directional arrows," Weiss huffed.

"Well, yeah, but then we wouldn't know who they're from, could be the evil ghostie leading us off a ledge or something to drop us into the ocean."

"Point."

The both of them leaned over the paper, silently reading the headline together. "Murders Unsolved! Mother or Father Could Have Been Ocean House Killer!" The blurry front-page article included a picture of the two of them, both rather solemn-looking.

"Well, this might be why they're all still here," Weiss mused. "If the murder was unsolved then the guilt could be tying them all to this place…"

Ruby nodded thoughtfully. "I have another theory."

"Oh?"

"Mmhmm. He's an evil fuck and is keeping them all trapped with him."

"Well… Yes, that does actually sound quite plausible."

Ruby nodded once again, this time in determination. "So let's figure out a way to set them free."

Turning, the brunette casually swatted the vase with her bat, breaking it before it could hit them in the back as they walked away.

There were fewer functional lights on this side of the building. The hallways that they traversed seemed to wrap around the hotel in a giant circle. They had to double back from a branch once as the path was blocked by a tangle of wood beams from a partially collapsed ceiling. Around the next corner, though, they spotted a flash of white, their friendly spirit racing down the passageway ahead of them and leading them on.

As they followed the trail, the frequency of attacks from hurled objects increased dramatically, so much so that both Ventrue fledglings felt it prudent to expend the necessary blood to activate their Fortitudes. There was simply no way to dodge or defend against all of the vases, picture frames, and even sometimes the fragments themselves after they'd broken against the fledgling's bodies. After running a particularly dangerous gauntlet, they thought they might actually be in the clear until a door just in front of them exploded into the hall, sending wooden fragments outward to embed into the wall opposite.

"Shit a brick!" Ruby gasped, eyeing the debris embedded into the wall right next to her. "That was close!"

Weiss nodded worriedly, glancing at her over her shoulder. "He's certainly getting more desperate and expending greater energy as well. We must be close."

"Well, I damn well hope so! What's next, collapsing the ceiling on us?"

Her partner paused, looking up in distress. "Please don't joke about that," she whispered.

"Sorry, yeah." Ruby scuffed her red converse against the worn carpeting sheepishly. "Okay, let's keep moving, huh?"

They passed the room now missing its door, glancing inside first to confirm it was otherwise barren. And then the duo reached the end that was blocked off from the other side, the blackened ruins even more visible from this side. The fire decades ago had obviously caused the collapse. Only one last door remained right next to the barricade. After opening it they entered a spacious suite with a large Persian rug in the middle and sparse furnishings, but the far end was partially collapsed from above. The beams were leaning downward, enough so that they could clamber up. Ruby stepped over first, testing her weight on the charred beams. Reassured that they would support them both, she turned and offered her hand back.

Weiss eyed the proffered hand warily. "You want to climb up?"

The brunette shrugged, keeping her hand extended. "Seems to be the only way forward."

Sighing in resignation, the other fledgling accepted the help. Together they scaled up and into the room above, which looked to be similar to the one underneath only this one was blackened throughout, showing severe damage from the fire long ago.

As soon as they began to make their way carefully across the room, however, a burst of purple light flashed from the sides of the room and a ghostly, ethereal flame began to lick up the walls.

Ruby stood anxiously in the center, as far away as possible from both unworldly conflagrations before turning to Weiss with her eyes wide and a bit panicked. "Is that real?"

The platinum-haired girl shook her head rapidly, pale blue eyes showing as much fear as she felt. "I don't know for certain, but I also don't recommend you let it touch you!"

"Good advice, let's keep close to the ground, huh?"

They crept forward towards the door, opening it onto the hall. More ghostly flames burst forth the further they hurried along, on either side and up along the ceiling. The inferno seemed to follow the pattern of the scorch marks that were already existing.

Weiss grunted as she sidestepped a glowing purple ember. "I think perhaps he's recreating the blaze from 1958!"

"Seems that way, yeah!" the brunette answered.

They came upon a gaping hole in the middle of the hallway, directly above the blocked-off portion of the floor below. Purple flames licked upwards from the crevasse.

Ruby quickly jumped over first, but when her friend went to do so another burst sent flames searing up and against her extended leg. She landed on the floor next to the brunette with a muffled shriek.

"Oh, shit, Weiss!" Ruby hovered over her, hands clenching into helpless fists. "What can I do?"

The injured fledgling shook her head slightly, teeth gritted in pain as she concentrated. The brunette girl tried to look the leg over. She could see that the bare portion above Weiss' boot and around her knee was blackened and oozing, but soon enough began to heal, bright pink skin eventually replacing the horrific burn.

"Okay," Weiss finally gasped out. "Well, I can tell you for certain, they may look unreal, but they certainly do hurt like real flames."

"Right," Ruby sighed in relief as her friend sat up. "So, avoid the purple fire. Got it."

She helped Weiss back to her feet and they continued on. Ruby took the lead again, her partner limping slightly right behind her.

They hadn't made it another ten feet before there was a crack as a piece of wood paneling flew across the hallway in front of them. Steam began to hiss out from a ruptured line.

"Fucking seriously?" Ruby groaned in consternation.

They were forced to crawl on their hands and knees at a couple of points, between the purple fire and the hot steam overhead, but the duo managed to make it past without further injury.

At the end, finally, was a door that opened up into the charred remains of a room. The skeletal walls and ceiling beams were exposed to the elements, the missing structure revealing the lighthouse in the distance and the ocean below.

Ruby let out an unnecessary but cleansing huff of air. "Whew, okay, let's stop for a minute."

"I don't think we have much choice," Weiss noted absently as she looked around where they had ended up. "This is the only stable portion of the flooring here."

"Right, true, but... Hang on a sec."

The brunette fledgling squinted her eyes. She could see at the other end of the room a silvery object atop a burnt endtable. "Yeah, I see something, might be what we're after… Lemme try and make it over there…"

"Ruby, no, it's entirely too…"

With the first step Ruby took, the room suddenly flashed in a blaze of light, and the scene before them was returned to its former whole state. The room was once again a sitting area, with elegant furniture. But most wondrous of all…

It was daytime.

Ruby stood stock-still in wonder. "Weiss, can you see this?" she whispered.

Her partner walked forward, stopping at her side and looking as if she were unsure whether or not she was in a dream. "I am seeing it, but I cannot believe it. This… It's daytime."

"Yeah."

"Ruby, the sun is shining upon us, that should not be possible."

"Well, somehow it is. C'mon, let's grab this thing before whatever spell this is stops."

They both reached the small table resting between two high-backed chairs. Ruby reached out to the object, a locket from the looks of it, but paused and turned with a wistful look on her face.

"Ruby?" her companion murmured in concern.

"Just… I just wanna fix it in my head." Ruby gazed around the panorama, obviously an illusion of some sort but one that was extraordinarily tactile. Setting aside the fact they just traversed a nonexistent floor, she could actually feel the warmth of the sunlight pouring through the windows on her skin. "I mean, when I last saw the daylight, I didn't realize it was the last time I would, y'know? So… Gimme a sec, I just… I want to say goodbye."

Weiss nodded slightly and with a soft smile. "Go ahead."

Ruby closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth upon her face and thinking back to days spent in parks with her family, playing softball, or riding her bike… Little things she had taken for granted before she no longer could experience them.

With a reluctant sigh, she let go of her past.

"Okay," she finally whispered. Her fingers closed around the locket. She couldn't prevent the startled gasp that escaped her lips as something jolted through her, almost like an electrical current. The mirage vanished, but along with it there reverberated a long, torturous, and furious wail that seemed to echo throughout the ruined hotel before trailing off into the distance.

Both fledglings turned to each other with slightly hopeful smiles.

"Did that do it?" Ruby asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Weiss shrugged. "I hope so. In any case, that does seem to be the locket from the diary."

The brunette nodded, feeling slightly anticlimactic but not minding it one bit. "Yeah, I felt it when I touched it, definitely what we came here for. Let's get outta here, okay?"

"That sounds like a plan to me."

They carefully dropped to the floor of the next room down where it looked to be more secure, making their way over to the door. It spilled them out onto the hallway they were on before, though this door had appeared to be sealed previously and hadn't been able to be opened from the other side. Cautiously the pair of fledglings entered the elevator shaft and crawled down the ladder until they could reach the top of the fallen elevator car.

It was a bit of a hop up to the next floor where the door was now open, but they managed it together and emerged onto the second floor by the balcony. They headed down the steps to the lobby once again and paused, both of them looking about in satisfaction.

Ruby's pleased expression darkened as her voice dropped into a growl. "Fuck you sideways, Ed. I hope you rot in hell." She gave the hotel interior the middle finger before slamming into the outer doors, sending them flying open and permitting the cool night air to wash over them once more.

Weiss smirked as she followed her out. "How very poetic."

"Yeah, well…" Ruby snorted softly, her hands on her hips. "If there is a God, then there has to be a hell, so I'm gonna be a believer just long enough to make sure that's where he ends up so he can't hurt his family any longer. And I hope they're out of his reach, now, too."

The pale Kindred shook her head almost in wonder as they walked down the stone steps. "You, Ruby Rose, are an idealist. That's a rarity amongst Kindred, much less Ventrue."

Ruby laughed lightly in response. "Well, don't let it get around, I'm trying to build a reputation for myself now."

"Most certainly," her friend smiled. "My lips are sealed."

Pausing in the middle of the torn-up parking lot, the brunette glanced at the other fledgling. "Hey, Weiss?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't know about you, but I think I'm just gonna jump the fence and pass on the stinky rat-filled sewer."

Weiss gave her a smirk. "I'm right behind you."

The pair of fledglings departed the Ocean House grounds, rapidly striding down the street and towards Santa Monica proper as quickly as they could without looking like they were running. Because they were Ventrues, and as such they most certainly did not run away. They merely… advanced in the direction opposite from whatever had been terrifying the shit out of them.

A/N: Credit for the last paragraph goes to CV12Hornet and their excellent (though discontinued) story, The Commission. So, that brings the Haunted Hotel arc to an end, hope everyone enjoyed the ride! Next up, our (mostly) fearless fledglings return to Therese! I'm sure there won't be any more complications, right? Riiight?

Oh, and Happy All Hallow's Eve / Samhain / Halloween (depending on your celebration preferences)!

Hugs for my fabulous Beta and collaborator, Live to anger the World, and to all of you awesome readers and reviewers! RealTerminal, carpenter656, Sharkdude5, kinigget, zerosabers, Lavits Dragoon, noone297, Haley Earthstone, SirSpangler, thanks as always for the support!

Stay shiny!