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It all started those first few days and nights that Agent Effie Hawkins spent at the infamous Hotel Cortez.

It was five years ago, five years before Effie remembers she stumbled into the quaint hotel, the first time she actually walked into the hotel was March twenty-sixth two-thousand-ten to be exact.

Effie tiredly stumbles into the Hotel Cortez after a long and grueling case in Los Angeles California. A case where the last family her team tried to save; ended up dead. All five of them.

The case was in Glassell Park, the Unsub they were chasing found one last family in the middle of the night, the family died of a gunshot and asphyxiation. Effie wanted so badly to save them. They all did. But they couldn't.

It ended horribly with her co-worker, Agent Derek Morgan, killing the Unsub the minute he pulled the trigger to shoot the last victim of the sixth family he had killed, the father being still alive when Derek killed the Unsub.

The father of the dead family couldn't think of his life without his family; they WERE his life. So he decided right there with the agents still in the room along with the bodies of his wife and children including the dead Unsub, he grabs his pistol he kept in his desk drawer, blowing his own brains out all over the ceiling before the team even noticed. Six people died. Two right in front of Effie.

So Effie needed a drink before she went back to Quantico, asking her supervisor Aaron Hotchner if she could have that following weekend off since she was rattled from the case to which her supervisor obliged.

The rest of her team went back to Quantico Virginia that night in their jet while Effie stayed behind and searched for a place to get drinks, and it's not as easy as you think to find a drink in the middle of the night in Los Angeles. But that's when she saw the neon sign flashing 'Hotel Cortez' and they had a bar that was open late, this was perfect.

The young agent checked herself in, the desk clerk giving her the last room key they had with a tag hanging off of it saying "Room sixty-four" so that's where she went, up the elevator and to her room, dropping her luggage off before leaving her room to go to the bar.

Effie approached the bar as the woman serving drinks looks her up and down before saying, "Are you sure you're in the right place, Cowgirl?"

The woman stops once she's standing in front of the bar, "I heard this is the place a woman could find the best martini in town."

The lady gasps, "Well, then, I guess you are in the right place." She replies, turning around after to start making the agent's drink.

After the woman finishes pouring the drink Effie smiles and takes it in her hand by the stem of the glass, tilting it back in her mouth as she downs the whole thing in one go.

"Another, please." The agent asks her.

The woman smiles before she starts to make the tired agent another drink as a man takes the stool next to Effie.

"Can I pay for your next one?" He asks, sending a warm smile her way.

Effie looks over at him, smiling at him sweetly before shaking her head, "I pay for my own drinks. It's cheaper than whatever it is you want from me."

The unknown man chuckles, lifting his own glass up to take a sip of his drink before replying with, "Just trying to be friendly Miss."

At that Effie scoffs, looking the man in the eyes, "Do I look like I need a friend right now?"

"Well, yeah." The man says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

She ignores it, shaking her head before downing her second drink that the barista handed her way.

"You want to go to a party upstairs? Liz's martinis are awful expensive." He offers after.

The barista Liz scoffs, looking at the man, "But they're worth every penny."

"I'm not looking for a party tonight. I'm just looking to drink myself blind and forget." Effie replies, a sad sigh escaping her lips.

"Well, last call here is in five minutes, so if you really want to get as blasted as you say you do, it's time to hit the after-party upstairs." The man pushes one last time.

The agent looks between Liz and the strange man, finally nodding her head, "Fine. I will come to your party."

The stranger smirks before he leads her upstairs to where the party is being held after she pays Liz for all of her drinks.

They arrive at a room numbered seventy-eight with gold numbering, "We're here." He says before the man rings the bell on the door, awaiting it to be opened.

Effie can hear a faint yelling of a man's voice, "DAMN IT, who is interrupting us?! I'll break the finger who dared to ring that bell!" And it sounded like he was pretty angry.

The door opens after to reveal a beautiful blonde woman who looks at the two people before her a small smile pulling onto her lips, "Yummy." She mutters after.

The man who lead Effie to the room pats her back a bit too roughly for her liking before leading her through the door and inside the room.

"What's wrong with you, barging in on his night? Not that I mind, but, a deal is a deal." The woman harshly whispers to the man, probably thinking Effie couldn't hear them.

The strange man smirks at the blonde woman, continuing to walk into the room. Effie jumps at the sudden yelling that starts again, "I get one night! One night with her the whole month!"

When the man who was yelling comes into view he looks Effie over before asking the man who brought her here, "Who is that with you?"

Effie nervously laughs, taking in the appearances of everyone in the room and walking nearer to the table, "What is this? A costume party?"

"This is Effie. She's an FBI agent in the Behavioral Analysis Unit of Quantico Virginia. And she has had the kind of day that makes a woman want to drink herself to death." The man standing in the doorway of the dining area says to the man sitting at the table.

"Really?" The man at the table asks, intrigued as he looks at the girl again.

"Jimmy loves to hear about the bad days, I'm the Countess, Elizabeth." The blonde woman she now knows as Elizabeth adds.

"The Countess of what?" Effie asks curiously, looking over to her.

"With those green eyes, I'll be the Countess of whatever you like, baby." Elizabeth says with a purr, winking at Effie.

"Tell me, Effie, was someone killed? Did you have to discharge your revolver?" The man she knows as 'Jimmy' cuts in to ask after getting up from his seat to walk closer to the three.

"No. But people died. Six of them. Children. And the man who killed them, one of my co-workers shot him before the father of the family who was still alive, shot himself in the head because of it. Brains are still hanging off the ceiling." Agent Effie Hawkins replies, her voice staying monotone as she recalled the events while walking around the dining table.

"You speak about this with such calm indifference, as if life and death have no meaning to you." Jimmy says with a smirk pulling at his lips.

"I'm a member of a team who tracks down serial killers for a living. What I know is that death is the only thing in life that has any meaning." Effie says with a soft sigh, glancing at one of the paintings in the room with her back towards the three people in the room.

The woman had so little empathy to any situation after working around that stuff for so long, the job definitely taking its toll on her.

The smirk that was on James' face got even bigger at the sound of the agent's words, if that was possible.

"I was promised there'd be drinking up here. I'm thirsty." Effie says as she turns back around to face the trio.

"Leave us. I need to spend some real time with this woman." Jimmy says as he tries to shoo the other two away.

"But, darling... it's our night." The Countess butts in, a slight pout on her lips.

"Yes, dear, and usually I would hold that sacred, but there is something about Effie that draws me in. And so, therefore, I release you from your service." He says to her, kissing the back of her hand after.

When he does the woman turns around and starts to head for the door, "Goodbye Effie." She says as she does, the door opening and closing behind the pair.

Now she's left in the room, alone, with the man she still only knows as Jimmy. He grabs a bottle of absinthe and pours it into a glass, walking over to Effie before holding it up to her.

"Absinthe." He says, referring to the drink as the woman eyes it cautiously, "Yes, I know it's not technically legal, but no need to play Elliot Ness tonight. My name is James Patrick March. I own this hotel." He finishes off.

"What is that accent? You sound like a nineteen-thirties movie, you look like one too." Effie questions James March.

The man smirks, "Ah, yes. I had a marvelous professor at Exeter. I freely admit that I mimicked his Brahman diction until I made it my own. As for my clothing, my choice of decor, the modern world is an awfully uncomfortable place, don't you think?"

He pauses, looking at the girls puzzled expression, "Yes, I know the accoutrements of modern living allow an ease of communication, but the price paid for that is that no one actually sits and talks over a drink like the good old days. Down the hatch!" James finishes, tipping his shot glass of absinthe into his mouth as Effie follows suit.

"Some time ago we had a guest here at the Cortez named Kirlian. A photographer. He claimed to be able to use electricity to photograph a person's aura. I became fascinated by these auras. Over time, I began to be able to see a person's aura the moment I met them. The moment you walked into my suite, I was struck by the intensity of your aura. See, most folks radiate red or blue, purple if they're quite mystical, but yours... was jet black. Black as the ace of spades, as they say." James March says as he points at her with a smirk.

"What does that mean?" Effie questions him, intrigued by this man and his curious ways.

"Two schools of thought. One is that you have a protective cloak around you. It allows you to focus on any task at hand, regardless of others judgement. The other is that you have a need to dominate and control the world around you, bend it to your will. That is a woman who is willing to do bad to do good." He answers the woman.

"You, sir, are full of shit." Effie says with a giggle, taking a sip of her absinthe again.

"And you are full of rage. Dangerous to keep it all inside, Dear Effie. It will give you cancer if you don't let it out sometimes. Tell me, have you ever roughed up a suspect a bit? Put him in handcuffs and then forgotten to read him his rights and just given him some good old fashioned justice right there on the spot?" James March asks her, standing from his seat to lean over the table slightly.

"You don't think I don't want to?" Effie snaps at the man slightly, noticing just how much she's held back.

"I feel your constant battle to keep it in check." James says, his smirk growing as he sees the rage rolling off of her. She was perfect.

"I once walked into a case where the Unsub, unknown subject, was raping, torturing and killing little girls of only ten years old. And he had a little girl there with him, her name was Ally. And he had her tied to a bed in his basement when we found him he was standing over her, admiring her cold dead body that he had just raped. It took everything I had not to pound this guys face in, make him swallow his own teeth and blood. Don't tell anyone that though." The agent says, her fists balled up as she grits her teeth.

"Why not? Why should you be ashamed? You would just be doing your job." March says with a chuckle.

"My job is to arrest them!" Effie snaps again, looking down at her hands that are still clenched in fists.

"And how does that make you feel? When you collar a man, as opposed to letting your fists be jury and judge?"

Effie scoffs, "If it was up to me?"

"Yes."

"I don't need a judge to tell me whether someone's guilty or not. I know!" She says, looking into his eyes as her voice raises.

"I believe you, Effie."

"If they took the leash off me, crime would drop in these cities."

"I truly do." James says, with a cheshire grin on his lips.

Then the pair drank his absinthe, and they talked for two straight days, Effie never once leaving his room.

During these two days they talked about the law -- man's law, God's law.

And about the meaning of true purpose and the meaningless of everything else.

Most importantly, he helped her forget.

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"She is the one." James March says to the Countess as Effie lay passed out on the couch in his suite.

"I don't want her, not now. She's been poisoned with that moonshine of yours." Elizabeth says with a scoff.

"I didn't invite you here to feed off of her, you perverted animal. I need your help. She... is the one. All the others I've tried to mentor to finish my work -- Gacy, Ramirez, that poof Dahmer -- all amateurs compared to this one!"

"She won't do it." The Countess quips, looking at the passed out girl.

"Why? This woman has greatness in her. Once in a generation rage. A woman only has a grip as tight as she does because she knows that if she lets go, even slightly, she will hurl herself into the abyss." James says, gazing almost lovingly at the woman on the couch.

"She won't let go. She still has hope." Elizabeth says, looking at the woman as well.

"Easily remedied. She just needs a little shove."

"Why would I help you when it gives me so much joy to see you suffer?" She says with a smile.

"She has a child. The boy is very beautiful." He offers, handing the woman the picture he found in Effie's wallet of her son Emmitt.

"Like I said, she just needs a little push. A nudge into the darkest places of her heart. She needs to hate the whole world and everything in it." James continues.

The Countess smiled, nodding a yes to James before leaning down to kiss the sleeping Effie's forehead, "Muah."

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But when Effie woke up, back in her car outside of her apartment in Quantico, she didn't remember that weekend in the Hotel Cortez. She didn't remember where she was, who she was with, what she did with them. It was lost time in her mind.

That's when she began to live two different lives, completely separate from each other.

One at home in Quantico Virginia with her FBI team, where a minute lasted every bit of sixty seconds.

The other at the Hotel Cortez with James Patrick March, time had a different journey in that place and five years went by like it was yesterday.

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Holy Cannoli!

I'm so excited to start this
AHS and CM mashup story!
I know I said in my other
book "Tea Cup" that I only
wanted to have one story
being written at a time but..
then I got this idea.

And when I did; I decided
that I wanted to write both of
these stories at once since I
love both shows so much
and I really liked both
stories so alas I created
Dark Minds.

The story of Effie Hawkins
and James Patrick March.
I hope you all are as excited
as I am about this one!