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After Effie received her invitation from Liz she heads back to her room, walking in and checking every inch of her room before seeing something on the bed and walking over to it.

On top of the bag that held some form of clothing was a note that read;
"Knock 'em dead. Love, Liz."

Effie felt a smile pull onto her lips as she sat on the bed, opening the bag to reveal a beautiful black velvet dress that stops just above the knees with a white Peter Pan collar on it. She loved it! Liz Taylor knew her so well.

The woman then quickly changes into the dress, slipping on some black monochrome converse to go along with the dress and her black and white striped socks, Effie curls her short brown hair a bit before tossing on some mascara, eyeliner, and bright red lipstick that made her green eyes pop.

Once she finished getting ready she stepped back and took a look at herself in the mirror and she's pleased with her appearance. Whew. She's ready for this, it's just a party possibly with ghosts of serial killers. No big deal.

The elevator door dings and Effie walks out of the doors nervously before heading down the hallway to the room the music was coming from, she pushes the door open and hears a man talking.

"So the key to a really good subfloor is containing the moisture below the floor. So you need to make sure that there's a -- a layer... a layer of, like--" The voice stops talking when he notices her walk in, eyeing her up and down and she suddenly felt subconscious.

But she continued to walk into the room regardless, "Hey, Effie! Hey, Listen, I -- I want to apologize for what happened. I wasn't mad at you it's just cops in general. Hey, hey, come sit next to me, between you and me, you don't want to sit next to Jeff or John. They like them young and cute, like you." The voice of Aileen says.

"Just keep your distance, enjoy your last night of freedom. You're leaving here in my custody." Effie says.

"Hey, come on, I'm sorry about what happened, just sit, you sit here." Aileen says while leading her to the seat.

"No, Aileen, Effie will sit where her name card is. You know we like to do things formally around here." A males smooth voice says, saving her from Aileen.

"Hey, suck my left tit Clark Gable!" Aileen yells at the man.

"Ah, we're all here now. Let's sit -- only so many hours in the night." The man says again, she assumed he was Mr March.

"John, you're here, Effie, next to me. Ricky you're here." He says as he points to all the seats.

Effie walks over and takes her seat next to James Patrick March and she felt her heart skip a beat. Okay what the fuck. She couldn't fall for a dead serial killer. That's insane. But then again nothing about her life right now is normal anyways.

"Ah, Absinthe. Our customary libation. To our special night and our new guest." He says, referring to Effie.

She smiled and lifted her glass with them before taking a sip of it before she questions him, "What is this? Who are you?"

"I'm March, I built this hotel."

"But the man who built this hotel died more than eighty-five years ago?" Effie questions him, still not quite understanding but she also does. He's dead. All of these people are, but how.

"That's my problem with the police, all you care about is evidence. Evidence, evidence, evidence. Until that evidence no longer fits the narrative you need to be true at which point the evidence becomes an illusion, a mistake, a trick. You've lived in my hotel long enough, Dear Effie, seen enough evidence to know what is impossible becomes very possible here." His smooth voice says to her.

James then looks up, "You're late!"

Then who she knows as Richard Ramirez, from her hometown says, "Too busy writing letters." As who she assumed was the zodiac killer made his way into the room.

This couldn't be made up. They all look too similar to the killers to be costumes. Maybe James was right, she knew now that this place made the impossible, possible.

"I don't get you man the real fun starts after you get caught don't you know that? And giving yourself your own nickname? Not cool dude." Ricky says to the mysterious man.

"Now, let's all introduce ourselves." James March says to the group around the table before pointing to the man named John who sat at the head of the table near her.

"I'm John, John Gacy. I'm from Norwood Park, Illinois. I own PDM contractors. Uh, PDM stands for Painting, Decorating, Maintenance and I'm also a member of the moose club. I mean, just because you got thirty bodies buried in your crawl space don't mean you can't have a really terrific rec room and be a respectable businessman."

James then points to who Effie thinks is Jeffrey Dahmer before waiting on the man to introduce himself.

"Uh, my turn? Okay. I'm, uh, Jeffrey Dahmer from Milwaukee."

Effie cuts in after, "Alright, Zodiac, they never caught you but I assume you'd be dead by now. Dickheads like you don't just retire from being assholes. Gacy, you were killed by lethal injection over twenty-five years ago. Dahmer, you were murdered in prison, deservedly. Aileen Wuornos, put to death in two-thousand-two in Florida. And I know you, because you're from my hometown, Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker. You just died of cancer in your cell a few years back. What is this exactly?" Effie asks.

"I invited you here tonight to help you, Effie. I've watched you and it makes me sad. Because greatness is about vision and you have made yourself blind to everything but what your eyes can see." James Patrick March answers.

"You need to listen to this dude, Effie. He... is the master. I mean he taught us all. He's a genius, like Galileo or Peter Frampton." Richard Ramirez says after.

"That's why we come here every Devil's Night, it's uh, like a tradition. It's a real honor to be invited. Only the ones of us who really took the master's advice gets an invite." John Gacy cuts in.

But if that's the case what is she doing here? Though maybe deep down she knew.

"Do you know why it took so long for the little piggies to catch me? Because one night I stumbled into this place, and I spent a few nights, and the master he came to me in my room and he beat the crap out of me. And he told me that if I wanted to be a volume operation, that I needed to be indiscriminate -- kill anyone. Your pattern needs to be no pattern." Ricky says to the girl on the other side of James.

"I guess I was out sick that day." Gacy says with a laugh.

"It's not funny Gacy!" Mr March snaps at the man.

"We are the Mount Rushmore of murder. We have reputations, codes of conduct. I've told you how many times? Leave no evidence." James continues, scolding the man.

"I covered them all with lye it's not my fault that the cop who used my bathroom was very familiar to the smell of rotting bodies. I told them -- it was my Lhasa Apso who piddled on the kitchen floor, but they didn't believe me."

"Murder is one part perspiration, ten parts preparation. I built this hotel for the sole purpose of hiding the evidence. All of my chutes and ladders, have you seen them yet, Effie? Miracles of modern engineering, Mr Gacy here came to the Hotel Cortez when he was just a young man, eighteen or nineteen." James continues.

"I was living in Vegas and I wanted to see the pacific so I got in the old Buick and drove out for the weekend and stayed here -- six bucks a night." Gacy continues the story for March.

"I showed him my secrets, he was good, very good. But imagine what he could have accomplished had he really listened to me. Thirty-three bodies he could have had three-hundred-thirty-three!" March yells at him.

John Wayne Gacy handcuffs Effie to her chair with a gun in his hand a laugh leaving his mouth, "That's my trick. The handcuffs. Once I have them cuffed it's pretty much all over."

Effie starts to panic, looking around the room. Oh, god is she going to die here tonight? She looks around the room seeing Ricky holding his hand up and Aileen walking Effie's way.

"No need to worry Effie, it's the absinthe dear girl." Comes March's soothing voice after.

"When I was nineteen trucker -- he picked me up hitchhiking. That's before I knew how to take care of myself. That dick cheese drove me all the way to LA, bought me in-n-out, tossed me to the curb. It wasn't until I stumbled into this place and met the master that I knew, I knew I was really worth something. It's the first man that's ever treated me with respect." Aileen says next.

Effie could feel herself getting drowsy, the room spinning around her as all these dead killers tell their story of how they found this place, how they found March.

"Jeffrey? You're even more quiet than usual tonight." James says, looking over at him.

"I'm just hungry." Dahmer quietly says.

"Ah, Mrs Evers!" James says with a smile as his maid walked in with a cart of what Effie assumed was food.

"Ladies first?" Mrs Evers asks.

"Please." March replies.

Then she hands a plate to Effie first as she's right near Mr March before going to give Aileen hers, serving everyone else after.

"I don't eat salad." Jeffrey says with a scoff, tossing his plate.

"Jeffrey likes dark meat!" Aileen hollers before laughing like a mad woman.

Then Ricky walked over to the record player, spinning a record in his hands as if to show off before putting it on and setting the needle atop it.

The agent smiled a bit as she heard the opening tunes of Sweet Jane by Cowboy Junkies sounding through the room, then sighed as she was still handcuffed to her chair. All of the killers start dancing around the room while she's stuck in her chair.

"Mrs Evers, bring out the amuse-bouchée now, would you?" James asks the woman.

When she does it's a man with long brown hair wearing something you'd imagine a caveman to wear, or maybe even Tarzan. Effie snickered quietly at the thought.

"Ah!" March says as everyone around the table starts to clap, "Thank you John." Then Gacy helps the man to sit next to Dahmer.

"You see Jeffrey? Don't I always take care of you? Don't I?" Mr March says while messing Jeffrey's hair up.

March laughs and fixes his hair for the man, "Oh, I'll help you there, boy."

Dahmer then looks into the eyes of the highly seduced man beside him with Gacy standing behind them.

"Please don't ever leave me. I'll get my drill." Dahmer says to the man.

Effie then looks over to James before eyeing her handcuffs. She really wanted them off. It's not like she really wanted to stop them she was more intrigued, observing them all.

They looked so alive for being ghosts.

"Excuse me, Mister March?" Effie speaks up, looking over at him.

"Yes dear girl? And you can call me James, please."

"Could, uh, could you maybe uncuff me from this chair?" Effie asks timidly.

The man smiles before grabbing the key from where Gacy sat and uncuffs her from the chair, she instinctively rubbed the wrists that were previously cuffed.

"See, I want to control them. I want to make them mine." Jeffrey says, getting out a drill-bit for his drill before straddling the man.

"To make them part of me. I want to make them a part of me. Never freaking works, though." He says, practically dry humping the guy, "They always die, like, ten minutes later." Before kissing the man.

"Oh, poor, sweet Jeffrey. When we met he was on a detour on his way back to Ohio from Miami where he ended up after being kicked out of the army. I told him if you want to be a great killer, you must understand people. To hunt them, you must be able to get into their minds." He says before pausing.

All of a sudden a passing thought runs through Effie's mind; in that case she'd be a great serial killer. She's a profiler for Christ sake.

"I didn't think he would take it literally." March says with a laugh which causes Effie to laugh a little too, the man's laugh entrancing her.

"I listened to you about burning the flesh off the bones with acid." Jeffrey cuts in.

"Yes, you did, dear, yes, you did." James March says.

Then Dahmer gets ready to stick his drill in the head and she knows she should at least try to stop it before giving up so she shoots his shoulder.

"Nice shot copper!" Ricky yells.

Then Jeffrey sighs, sticking his finger in his wound and looking at Effie, "Don't you get that we're already dead?" Before drilling into the man's head.

Effie laughs a laugh that sounds a bit like a mad woman at her breaking point before she says; "Actually yes, I just wanted to test the theory because I feel like I'm going fucking crazy."

At the sound of that a huge Cheshire grin snakes its way onto James Patrick March's lips.

"Well, was I correct in thinking you would appreciate this dark evil given the line of work you're in?" James asks her with a soft cackle.

"I mean, possibly, but I can't be so sure yet." Effie says before taking a sip of her absinthe.

"It's fine, you're clearly not yet our kind." March says, a knowing smirk on his lips.

"I want to drink, to the master!" Ricky says.

"Ah, thank you." He says before they all raise their glasses and drink their alcoholic beverages.

James March then stands up from his seat and says, "Thank you all for being here on Devil's Night, but it is I who should be the one celebrating you. I look around and I see the definition of American success. They write books about you, make movies of your life."

"Johnny Depp likes my paintings!" John Gacy yells happily.

"Years after your death, people continue to be enthralled. You've made your mark in history. Like the Iliad your stories will live on forever." March finishes off his speech.

Effie feels a faint smile pull onto her lips, you know he's right. All these killers stories live on forever. Her? Probably not many people would remember a nearing insane FBI Agent who saved a few people a few times, that's for sure.

"I consider you all my equals, nothing would please me more if you could stay and join me for dessert." James speaks up again, the group of killers cheering after he does.

"Dessert! I almost forgot! I'm gonna go put on my makeup!" John Gacy yells before heading off to the bathroom.

Then Sally walks in with a man as she says, "He's flying on an eight ball of China White. This will buy me a year of being left alone, right?"

"As always!" March says to her.

Sally then walks out of the room to leave as Mrs Evers opens a tray with all kinds of various knives.

"I hope you don't mind to witness, Dear Effie, but we always have a sacrifice we like to complete here on Devil's Night." James says as Mrs Evers walks around with the tray allowing all the killers to grab whatever they preferred.

Effie laughed before shaking her head, "No continue on with your sacrifice. As long as you don't mind me skipping out on partaking, this time." she whispers the last two words quietly, thinking no one hears them.

But James Patrick March did in fact hear those last two words because he felt the smile on his face grow into a Cheshire cat smile.

"To us! The greatest killers of our time. This sacrifice bonds us together, for eternity." James Patrick March says before he starts to hum a tune.

He walks up behind the man and taps him on the shoulder, the man turns around as James says, "Pardon." Before shoving his knife into the man's gut.

After James stabs him all the rest of the killers join in too, stabbing him repeatedly way more than was necessary to kill the man.

And Effie just watched, after all, her job made it easy easier to stomach watching things like this. But then again maybe there's something deeper, darker inside of her that likes it.

When the killers are done and the night is starting to fade they all leave March's room until there's just James and Effie in the room.

"Did you enjoy the show, Miss Hawkins?" James asks with a smile.

"I did." Effie whispers as a Cheshire smirk makes its way onto her lips.

"Good, now, let's get you back to your room, you're a bit intoxicated dear." Mr March says before leading her back to her room like a proper gentleman.

When she makes it into her room she changes quickly into her pajamas before climbing into her bed and falling fast asleep for what felt like the first time since she's been in Los Angeles working this case.

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Ooooh!

Effie liked watching
them murder the man!!
She's evolving into a little killer;
even though she already is one
she just doesn't know it yet.