Young Writers Society

He nods. "It'll be a pleasure to work with you." Cornyx swings open the door for her and stands aside, gesturing for her to go ahead.

"Are you sure?" asked Li He, concerned for her new acquaintances. "Maybe I should come too."

"I appreciate your concern, Li He. However, I believe we shall fare alright; the moon is new, after all, and the darkness is, as you know, where my kind thrives," he answers with a slight smile. For all his polite, friendly facade, his eyes betray an almost predatory look about him.

Li He swallowed. Cornyx almost looked like a different person. She shouldn't have forgotten how dangerous he had seemed before.

She nodded in acquiesce and stepped back. "Okay."

As Cornyx slips out the door and into the shadowy hall((I'm assuming @KaraStevens ' character comes as well, but don't want to take control of her)), Raven seems to shimmer into existence behind and to the side of Li He. "You walk on a spider's web," her soft, singsong voice murmurs. "Be careful or you may be trapped."

Li He flinched as Raven appeared beside her. She blinked rapidly and stammered, "What--what do you mean?"

"A deathtrap," she whispers. "And once you're in...you don't come out."

I don't know what she means. But what makes the most sense is how I'm walking around in broad daylight yet trying to hide the super big secret of my species.

Besides the fact, Li He was once again getting creeped out, but she had to be civil, so she nodded. "Thank you for your advice, Raven."

She chuckles, an almost eerie sound. "There's no need to pretend fox-one; you do not understand nor do you see. You tread on thin ice, and the devil wears many faces."

James facepalms. "I shouldn't have said anything." He says to himself, as if a revelation. "Hah. Wow, I really shouldn't have said anything." He should've known that someone would say they'd do it anyway, despite his warning. He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. Did no one hear him say it was stupid? Did no one here want to stay safe? And then this woman had to go and appear out of nowhere - he glanced over at her curiously. Was... was she there before? Did she just come in?

He overheard her warnings and gave a side-glance at Hades. Why did it seem she was talking about Cornyx, and not the guy who said he was... a god of death or whatever?

"Look, miss, if you think the guy who just went out there could cause any harm to the girl who went with him, or this young lady right here, then that's more than just something you give a little warning about. Our hotel wants to keep you all as safe as possible, especially in light of everything that's going on. So if you think think someone is a danger to themselves or others, you let us know, so we can help, ok?"

Raven raises an eyebrow, amused. "You, a mere human, are so arrogant as to think you may protect your own hunter against spirits, the likes of which you have not seen?"

"No, I know I don't have a bloody chance against them but I'll be damned if I don't try." James retorted. He had a feeling she would say he'd be damned for trying but he didn't care. "If you wanna give it a try and protect us, then go on, give it a go." She seemed to think she was more capable as whatever not-human or non-mortal she was anyway.

"In the meantime I'm gonna go check on Alex." James said with finality, before he began to walk down the hallway. If someone wanted to join him he expected them to follow.

"I'll go with him," Hades informed the people remaining in the room before rushing out into the hallway. He heard someone follow him out of the room. When he turned, he saw that it Sarah. She gave him a smile as he caught up to James and turned his attention to the employee.

"I'll come," he said with a warm smile. "And, um, don't worry about me looking human. This is what I actually look like. The cloak is just something that was given to me that makes people see me as how they perceive death..." He wasn't sure if he should go into more detail about his Artifact.

That was usually something that humans didn't learn about, although the humans that he interacted with also didn't learn that he was Hades. It wasn't that he was a god who looked down on humans. It was more that the information was considered classified, just like things that governments kept secret from their country's occupants.

Speaking of which, there was still that thing that Raven had said. From the look on James' face, it seemed that it was bothering him even now. "I'm sorry for what Raven said to you," he apologized. "I've only just met her, but I'm sorry that she looked down on you for being a human...Some gods I know are like that too, but I think that's just because none of them really interact with humans. So I'm sorry."

James looked over to Hades with a raised brow as his sole reply to the man's friendly greeting, before he turned his gaze back to the direction he was walking. He hunched his shoulders a bit, putting his hands in the pockets of his still-somewhat wet raincoat, and simply listened, absorbing the information about Hades's cloak. He didn't know how or why a guy would want a cloak that did such a thing (he felt it would only end up being problematic), but it was whatever. At least the guy seemed a decent fellow, though he did scare the heck out of James earlier.

"I appreciate the apology on her behalf, but I don't give a rip, really. I like being a human." James replied with a one-shouldered shrug and continued leading Hades along. He knew some things about the supernatural, but none all this 'god' and 'death god' stuff.

"I'm just not keen on people assuming things about me that aren't true." He mutters, as he fishes in his pockets for some master keys. He flips through them and finds the one to the stairwell that led to the kitchen, and opens the door for Hades, then redirects the conversation to more pressing matters.

"Alex is the new assistant chef, but I've been keeping tabs on him. He keeps to himself, minds his own - and, nothing's wrong with that, really - but I've seen him sneaking around the hotel in places he's never needed to be. First I thought he was just going out for a quick smoke - cigarettes, and what not - but I've picked up on this weird, underlying bitterness about the hotel. You can hate when somebody hates their job, which I think he does, but this is more than that. He's always been sour about Henry and hates it when anyone says they've seen something strange - though, remarks like that don't get made much anymore, as you can imagine, since we get used to such things."

He pauses, and clears his throat before throwing open the door at the top of the stairwell. "So how's that for a suspect profile?"

Well, there was no need to deny it anymore. For sure, they knew. Li He straightened and looked Raven in the eyes. "Okay, so you two know what I am. Is someone after me?"