Hotel Monteleone.
As one of New Orleans' most famous haunted hotels, it was well known online.
Many guests had reported seeing ghosts here.
Not only that the dining hall doors, the elevators, and even objects in the rooms sometimes move on their own.
There was even a hallway where, as guests walked through, the temperature dropped and visions of children playing would appear.
Most of these eerie phenomena were said to happen after eight at night.
After being let down all day, Rai didn't quite believe the stories anymore.
Still, since he was already here, he decided to give it a try.
They entered their reserved room. It was just after eight.
Rai was still thinking about where to test his luck when..
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
Rai's heart tightened. He spun around only to have a hot, curvy body suddenly fall into his arms.
Two pale, slender arms wrapped around his neck like snakes.
Seeing Madison's burning gaze closing in, Rai froze and quickly said, "Madison, are you misunderstanding something?"
"Misunderstanding? They say Asian guys are shy and honest, but Rai, you're nothing like that. Inviting me to a hotel at night… who wouldn't know what you're thinking?" Madison's voice dripped with allure, her movements not stopping in the least.
"Wait, I really came here for serious business!"
"Isn't this serious business?"
"I…"
Just as the enemy's assault was about to overwhelm him, suddenly!
A chair beside them shifted on its own.
Startled, Rai quickly pushed Madison back, his expression turning serious. "Careful! There's an anomaly here!"
As he spoke, he pulled out the cross with his left hand, gripped the Glock with his right, his face caught between excitement and anxiety, ready to act at any moment.
"What is it?" Madison, cut off, looked confused.
Rai pointed at the chair. "The chair just moved on its own."
"Maybe you were seeing things…"
Before Madison could finish, with a thud, the painting on the wall suddenly fell.
She jumped in fright.
But that was only the beginning.
Not just one the other framed paintings on the wall, though untouched, began to fall one after another, as if pushed by invisible hands.
Madison's body instantly went rigid; she hurried back to Rai's side, a trace of panic in her voice. "Rai, I get what you mean now."
Though she had boasted before about catching a ghost, even a vampire as her boy toy, when truly facing such a scene, she couldn't help being flustered.
"Don't worry. I came fully prepared."
Even though he was just as nervous, Rai still stepped forward to set an example.
The atmosphere in the room grew more and more sinister.
The chair began moving again, scraping noisily across the floor.
Cups whirled through the air before smashing to pieces on the ground.
The chandelier overhead swung wildly, throwing the room into a flickering haze.
"Is it about to show itself?"
As the commotion escalated, Rai's palms grew sweaty. His eyes stayed locked on the shadows around them.
What was going on?
The buildup was this strong; shouldn't the main act appear by now?
Puzzled, Rai glanced at Madison, who looked just as tense. Just as he was about to look away, a thought struck him.
The chair moving, the paintings falling, the chandelier swinging…
Telekinesis!
Of course!
No wonder the Grimoire of the Eternal Prison hadn't reacted.
"Madison!"
Rai glared fiercely at her, seeing both tension and eager anticipation in her eyes.
He'd almost forgotten she was an actress.
"Nice acting! Who knew you had such skills!"
As soon as his words fell, the room instantly went still.
One second, the room was steeped in an eerie, terrifying atmosphere.
Next, it was broken by giggling.
Once Rai called her out, Madison dropped the act. The tension on her face flipped; hands on her hips, she grinned like a little devil whose prank had just landed.
"Ha! Rai, you really were scared. Well? Didn't I play a pretty good 'ghost'?"
Rai kept a straight face and shot her an annoyed glare.
"Don't be like that, smile a little, mm? I basically helped you complete the day's unfulfilled dream. Can't go home empty-handed, right? At least feel the supernatural vibe. A witch with power counts as supernatural, too."
"Thanks ever so much," Rai rolled his eyes. "I'm here to take down the supernatural. What, should I start by taking you down?"
At that moment, he dearly missed obedient, well-behaved Zoe; Madison, who acted purely on whims, could be exasperating.
"It's not like you can't 'take me down'…" Madison's red lips curled. She reached out again, snaking herself against him; her hot breath brushed his face, full of provocation. "How about ending the day right, an exorcist versus a witch?"
'Exorcist versus witch?'
Are you sure that "versus" doesn't mean something else?
Rai was about to refuse righteously-
Suddenly, the window banged: clank, clank, hard impacts echoing.
Rai turned his face aside and deadpanned, "Again? I'm not falling for the same trick twice."
"What?" Madison, whose attention was entirely on Rai by now, answered a little breathlessly.
"I…"
Rai was just about to explain when…!
A louder crash went off.
Boom!
The front door, which had been shut, was smashed flat as if run over, slamming to the floor.
Seeing it, Rai frowned. "Madison, that's a bit much. Never mind paying for the door at checkout, are you trying to livestream this for the whole world?"
"Livestream? Pass."
Jolted by the noise, Madison glanced back.
"F-! Who did that?" Staring at the collapsed door, she looked genuinely shocked.
"Not you?"
"Of course not! At a time like this, why would I make things worse?"
It was so reasonable that Rai believed her at once.
So, how to explain what was happening now?
Rai was about to step out to check when the banging at the window grew more violent.
Not only that, though they were inside a hotel, a savage gale roared in through the doorway, blasting tables, chairs, plates, everything into a chaotic whirl.
Faintly, a voice rode the wind and drifted in:
"Hissss…"
"Rai, did you hear something?"
Madison's face had gone a little pale. No more acting, now her long, nail-polished fingers clamped tight around Rai's arm as she asked, nervous.
Rai cocked an ear. "Sounds like…"
"Hiss… who… took… my… golden… arm… hiss… hiss… who… was… it…?"
"Golden arm?" Rai startled, blurting it out.
The moment he spoke-
All movement stopped.
Then
Thud, thud, thud…
The window panes, no longer able to hold, shattered piece by piece, glass carpeting the floor as a gale poured in from outside.
Together with the even fiercer gusts through the doorway,
It was like a hurricane had struck where they stood; everything howled into the air. Rai clutched Madison with all his strength; only their combined weight kept them from being blown away.
And as the wind grew wilder, the voice within it grew clearer:
"Hiss… who! took… my… golden arm!"
"Who was it!"
"Who… was it!"
The hell-born, beastlike roar swelled and swelled,
Until it tolled in their ears like a bell.
"Rai, I think we actually ran into a ghost this time." Madison forced a smile.
"Not thinkwe did." Rai felt the Grimoire of the Eternal Prison blazing scarlet in his mind and spoke with certainty.
He glanced at the bag that had been flung aside when he and Madison braced themselves shoulder to shoulder.
So in the end, the haunting wasn't at any of the places he'd found online, but from the golden arm they'd picked up off a stranger.
Call it an accidental harvest.
"Hiss… who… who was it…"
The chilling voice kept on.
Just as they were getting used to it, a new voice exploded in their ears, not as frenzied but far more hair-raising.
"Found you."
"So… it was you… who stole… my golden arm!!!"
Madison shuddered. Knowing exactly what had set it off, she said quickly, "Rai, how about we just give it back?"
"Too late!" Rai's eyes were locked on the doorway.
There, a figure was forcing its way in.
Plod… plod… plod…
Heavy footsteps drew closer and closer.
"Looks like it wants to kill us first and then take the arm."
This time it was for real. Rai swiftly drew both science and scripture.
A moment later, the owner of the footsteps stepped into the room.
"Disgusting."
At Madison's verdict, Rai looked.
A female corpse, long buried, skin everywhere putrid, maggots writhing inside, shuffled step by step into the room.
Its right forearm was missing.
No surprise the golden arm had once been there.
Rai swallowed, tried to speak: "Listen, we weren't the ones who took your arm. Do you believe me?"
The corpse's blood-red eyes fixed on Rai. It peeled open its rotting mouth and hissed:
"My golden arm… where is it?"
"Who took… my golden arm… damn you!!!"
The stare crawled over Rai's skin. If talking wouldn't work, then act.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He snapped up the Glock, and like the cops in the movies, emptied the magazine in seconds with deadly resolve.
His hands shook, but at this range every shot hit.
The corpse that had been glaring at him toppled with a thud, head and torso riddled with holes, rotten flesh splattering everywhere.
While slamming in a fresh magazine, Rai leaned to check: "Did we get it?"
"No!" Madison, with witch's blood, felt no end to it and shouted a warning.
Sure enough, the corpse that had taken so many rounds now pushed itself straight up from the floor.
With a clatter, the bullets squeezed out of its body and dropped, tinkling across the ground. Its abyssal, empty eyes fixed on Rai again, and it shrieked:
"Give… back… my… golden arm!!!"
Damn!
Even that didn't kill it!
And those bullets had been soaked in holy water.
He thought of the priest yesterday, who had sworn up and down he'd performed dozens of exorcisms in his life, and that anything he blessed was the ultimate bane of the supernatural.
Refusing to believe it, Rai kept firing.
But aside from hindering the corpse's movements a little, it did nothing else.
He quickly turned and asked Madison, "What do priests usually say from the Bible when they do exorcisms?"
He actually had memorised a few lines before, but in his nerves, he'd forgotten them all.
"Huh?" Madison was stumped.
Ask her about the seasonal fashion trends, and she could rattle them off.
But the Bible?
She'd forgotten most of it long ago.
"I command you… to get lost?" Madison answered, not very confident.
Rai was speechless.
Madison shot him an exasperated glare and reminded him, "I'm a witch, remember!"
Forget it, roll with it!
Rai knocked the corpse flat with another shot and, while it was still down, yanked out the cross and the Bible. Fighting down his fear, he rushed up, pressed both cross and Bible hard against the corpse, and shouted:
"In the name of ugh.. in the name of God, I command you to leave this place and go back to hell!"
Building on Madison's prompt, Rai kept repeating the line at the corpse.
It seemed to have some effect.
Hearing the corpse's hissing grow even more shrill, Rai, delighted, was about to push harder when.
A gust blasted across them.
Impatient now, the corpse lashed out with its only intact left hand; with one slap, it sent the cross and Bible flying.
Rai, scared out of his wits, tumbled and scrambled away from it.
"Weren't the cross and the Bible supposed to work? The priest screwed me over! The movies screwed me over!"
Watching the corpse spring up, full of fight and bearing down on him like nothing had happened, Rai shouted for help: "Madison, it's on you!"
Boom!
Even as the words left him, a violent invisible force blasted from Madison's hands. The corpse couldn't resist, and it flew backwards and sank deep into the wall.
"Thinking women turn into something as hideous as you after death makes me genuinely sick," Madison curled her lip, full of disgust.
With the time Rai had bought trading blows with the corpse, she'd recovered and cooled down now; she brought her power to bear for real.
"Roooar!!"
Apparently enraged by Madison's line, the corpse tore free of the wall and charged at her.
Madison, cool as ever, didn't flinch; a flick of her hand and the corpse went flying again.
Boom! Boom!
From then on, it was a one-sided beatdown.
"Cool~~" Rai whistled at the sight. "Madison, just like that! You're at your most charming right now."
"Yeah? So that's the style you like." Madison even found a moment to wink at him, all seduction.
But their laughter faded quickly.
On the surface, Madison had the upper hand; the corpse couldn't get close and kept taking hits.
What unsettled them both, though, was that no matter how much damage it took, even when Madison twisted its body into a pretzel with telekinesis, it still didn't perish, and even began mending itself. It looked downright unkillable.
"Rai, we need another plan," Madison said, frowning.
A witch's power wasn't infinite.
If she kept this up, she wouldn't last long.
Seeing how serious it was, Rai kept muttering, "I know, I know," eyes darting around the room, wracking his brain.
First, he looked to the Grimoire of the Eternal Prison, trying to summon it and aim it at the corpse no reaction at all.
The book might "contain all things supernatural," but it clearly wasn't going to move on its own; he'd have to feed the anomaly into its mouth himself.
Plan A failed; Rai urgently groped for Plan B.
"Rai, if this doesn't work, we bail," Madison shouted.
Even as she braced to bolt but still warned him, Rai, touched that their flirtation wasn't for nothing, was about to agree when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the bag with the golden arm.
His eyes hardened. He yanked the arm out, sprinting at the corpse as he yelled, "Madison, hold it still!"
Gritting her teeth, Madison thrust out both hands. With what power she had left, she pinned the corpse in place.
Rai reached it smoothly and brought the golden arm down like a hammer, smashing at the corpse with all his strength.
"You want the golden arm? Fine, I'm giving it back! Giving it back…"
With every "giving it back," Rai swung the arm down again.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Rotten flesh splattered.
To a bystander, it would've looked like a sicko abusing a corpse.
But the target itself, the corpse, stopped raging and instead stared fixedly at the golden arm, strangely agitated:
"My golden arm… my golden arm…"
"It's your golden arm… it's your golden arm…" Rai echoed each line, all while laying on blow after blow with the thing it longed for.
At last, just as Madison spent, let her hands drop, the corpse by all rights free to move again still didn't budge, letting Rai keep at it.
Only when Rai finally ran out of strength did he notice it had long since been able to move.
He flinched and started to pull back when the corpse slowly extended its left arm and pointed at the golden arm.
"My… golden… arm."
With that, its body slackened and it dissolved into nothing.
Rai stared, stunned.
That… did it?
He looked at the golden arm in his hands. What had started as venting had, unexpectedly, hit the mark.
The corpse that craved the golden arm had the golden arm as its weakness?
A newbie to the supernatural, Rai could only think so.
But why wasn't the Grimoire reacting?
He checked the grimoire in his mind, still no movement.
No, there was something.
[Containment Points (CP): 10]
On entry No. 000, his own page, Rai was surprised to find the original 0 had become 10.
So what did that mean?
Was the corpse handled or not?
Rai shook his head. Even as the grimoire's Warden, there was still a lot he didn't understand.
Madison walked over then, glanced at the spot where the corpse had vanished, and let out a long breath. "Nice work, Rai! I think that settles it, right?"
Watching her, Rai sighed lightly.
"Settled? Maybe."