I was working on the story today and just couldn't stop writing the next chapter, so I'm updating early! This chapter gives a little more insight as to why James has an interest in Lenore. All italics mean flashback! Hope you enjoy! Please leave a review at the end!

Death Upon Her Eyes

Lenore looked around the dimly lit room, the only source of light coming from the sunlight that peeked through the curtains. Music was playing softly as she sat on the couch. She jumped slightly when a glass appeared on front of her face.

Looking up she saw the man, James March, standing above her with a slight smile on his face. She took it with both her hands and cradled it on her lap. James took a seat across from her, crossing one leg over the other as he stared at her over the rim of his glass as he took a sip.

He licked his lips before saying, "Please, take a drink. It'll calm you do."

Hesitantly, Lenore brought the glass up to her lips and she could smell the alcohol in the drink. She took a small sip and was surprised at how good it tasted despite the slight burn that slid down her throat.

"T-thank you," she said softly.

A silence fell between them. The only sound being the sound of the music playing in the background. Lenore was nervous. Not because she was in a stranger's room but the fact that the stranger was a ghost. She had never been comfortable with ghosts of adults. Children were easier to deal with for her. Ghosts that had been grown in their living forms seemed to be more violent than children.

Suddenly, James raised his glass and began to recite, "For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, the life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes, the life still there, upon her hair- the death upon her eyes."

Blinking, Lenore stared at him before a small smile emerged on her lips. James' own smile grew and he said, "You know the reference?"

She nodded silently, " It's from Poe's Lenore.

He seemed surprised that she would know the poem, "Are you an admirer of poetry then? Sadly, not many enjoy the classics these days."

Lenore turned the glass between her hands, "I suppose. I've always liked the Gothic and Romantics best."

His eyes brightened and he leaned forward, "Quite dark my dear."

She shyly looked down at her glass.

"What is your favorite if I may ask?" James sat back against the coach and took another sip of his drink, staring at her as she thought on his question.

He raised a brow as she said, "The Cask of Amontillado by Poe."

"Really?" he asked, intrigued, "Do you enjoy stories of revenge then?"

She shook her head and looked up from her glass, "I like stories with meaningful deaths I guess."

In James' mind, he thought that perhaps there was a darkness in Lenore after all. But her aura, oh her aura was so bright! Not a stain was on her soul. She was still as she appeared in her picture he saw those five years ago. Innocent and Pure.

"Damn it! Who is interrupting us? I'll break the finger who dared ring that bell!"

It had been his night with Elizabeth. The night he yearned for every month. Elizabeth had been quick to rise from her seat and made her way to the door and pulled it open quickly to find her paramour, Donovan, standing on the other side.

From where he sat at the long table, James screamed, "I get one night! One night with her the whole month!"

But suddenly he was more intrigued than angry. Entering the room was John Lowe. From the moment he saw that man he knew. He was the one who would finish his work. It was his aura. It was dark. As dark as his own tar black soul.

"Who is that with you?" he had asked.

John had walked further into the room, clearly drunk. He looked from Elizabeth to James, asking, "What is this, a...costume party?"

From behind him, Donovan said, "This is John. He's a detective, and he's had the kind of day that makes a man want to drink himself to death."

"Really?" James asked from where he sat at the table.

As he rose to his feet, Elizabeth approached John, "Jimmy loves to hear about the bad days. I'm the Countess."

Being cheeky, John asked, "The countess of what?"

"With those blue eyes, I'll be the countess of whatever you want baby," she had replied, staring at him with a sultry smile.

James stood closer to John now. Intrigued with the detective, he asked, "Tell me John, was someone killed? Did you have to discharge your revolver?"

"No," John said calmly as he walked further into the room, "But people died. Five of them children. And their father shot himself in the head because of it. Brains are still hanging off the ceiling"

"You speak about this with such calm indifference, as if life and death have no meaning to you." James said, studying the man who stood next the the long table.

John looked over at him and said, " I'm a homicide detective. What I know is that death is the only thing in life that has any meaning."

James' eyes lit up and a smile came to his face. From then on he knew. He had finally found his apprentice.

After dismissing Elizabeth and Donovan, James had fetched a glass of absinthe for the two of them. As he poured the absinthe, he began to explain, " 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 man's aura. I became fascinated by these auras. Over time, I began to be able to see a man's aura the moment I met him."

Turning to the table where John now sat, James said, " The moment you walked into my suite, I was struck by the intensity of your aura."

Siting across from the detective, James leaned on the table, "See most folks radiate red or blue. Purple if they're quite mystical."

"But yours," James said as he pointed at John, "was jet black. Black as the ace of spades, as they say."

"What does that mean?" John asked, cradling his drink.

"Two schools of thought," James explained, " One is that you have a protective cloak around you. It allows you to focus on any task at hand regardless of the other's judgement. The other is that you have a need to dominate,"

John's hands clinched atop the table as James continued, " and control the world around you. Bend it to your will. That is a man who is willing to do bad to do good."

Smirking drunkenly at James, John murmured, "You are full of shit."

"And you are full of rage," James retorted calmly as he watched John down the glass of absinthe.

"Dangerous to keep it all inside, John. It will give you the cancer if you don't let it out sometimes," James said as he studied John.

" Tell me, have you ever roughed up a suspect a bit? "

This comment made John chuckle as he began to squirm in his seat, " Put him in handcuffs and then forgotten to read him his rights and then just given him some good old-fashion justice right there on the spot?"

"You think I don't want to?" John asked, looking over at James.

"I feel your constant battle to keep it in check," James said bluntly.

John looked down at the table as a memory began to bubble up from the back of his brain. A memory he wanted to forget more than the sights he had witnessed in that house with the dead children and the father who shot his own brains out.

"I once walked in on a 273D-domestic dispute in progress," he began as James rose to his feet to refill their glasses.

"It took everything I had not to...pound this guy's face , make him swallow his own teeth and blood." John snarled as his hands turned into fists as the memory grew stronger.

Looking up, John said, "It was my own sister."

James turned around and looked at him carefully as he handed John the glass and sat back down, "Your sister?"

John nodded and for whatever reason, pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to the picture he kept of his baby sister. He extended the wallet out to James, who took it and peered down at her face. She was smiling shyly and her eyes were soft. The picture had been taken just after she had been released from the mental hospital.

"I had gone to check on her. I hadn't heard from her in a few days and got worried," John stopped to take a drink.

James stared down at the image of Lenore and ran a finger over her face as his eyes widened slightly and his breath caught in his throat.

"What is her name?" he asked. He tried to sound casual, but he had never wanted to know a woman's name as much as he wanted her's.

"Lenore," John said with a drunken smile that turned into a snarl, "She didn't deserve what he did."

"And what happened?" James asked, forcing himself to look back at John, "What occurred that night?"

"The bastard was beating her. Treating her like she was some goddamn animal! It took everything in me, everything to not kill him on the spot. She wouldn't tell me but I knew it hadn't been the first time."

"His name?" James asked, voice cold and eyes dark.

John looked up at James from the table where he was envisioning his fantasy of killing the bastard who had hurt his sister.

" Daniel Claymore."

John said the name with distain and disgust before downing his glass.

"Don't tell anyone though, that I wanted to do that?" John said to James, who looked at him with confusion.

"Why not? He would have deserve it. You would have been doing your job!"

Scoffing, John said, "My job is to arrest them. Even if they do hurt my own sister."

Tilting his head, James lifted a brow as he asked, "And how does that make you feel? When you collar a man, as opposed to letting your fists be jury and judge?"

"If it was up to me?" John said, staring at James, "I don't need a judge to tell me whether someone's guilty or not. I know. "

"I believe you, John," James encouraged.

" If they took the leash off me, crime would drop in this city," John continued.

"I truly do," James said softly.

They had drank the absinthe. They had talked for two straight 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.

After those two days, James had summoned Elizabeth to him to put his plan into action. Yes, John was important to his work, to his art. But more importantly, John had brought him a new purpose.

That purpose was Lenore Lowe, the girl with a pure, innocent soul that James Patrick March knew belonged to him.

"Mr. March?"

The sound of her voice broke him out of his memoriam. He gave a charming smile and rose to his feet when he noticed her standing.

"Going so soon?" he asked, disappointed.

She extended the glass to him, "I think I'm alright now."

He took the glass and returned it to the bar of his suite, taking his time as he spoke, "You know, Ms. Lowe, that there is something quite rare about you that I find fascinating."

At the sound of her name, her back straightened. She hadn't told him her name. She watched him as he turned back to her and began to grow closer to her. Swallowing, she clenched her fingers in her dress.

"Would you like to know what that is?" he asked.

Hesitantly, she cleared her throat, "W-what is it?"

A curious look came over his face and he pocketed his hands in his slacks, You haven't said a word pertaining to me being an apparition. Why is that my dear?"

He knew? Blinking, she released her hold on the material between her fingers and looked at him unsurely, "I'm sorry?"

"It's alright, there's no reason to be afraid dear girl, I'm not going to hurt you," he reassured her.

"How did you know I could-" she began only to be cut off when he raised a finger.

"What is important, Ms. Lowe, is that you have nothing to be afraid of in my hotel. You will not be harmed by any of the ghostly residence during your stay at the Cortez. You have my word."

He reached down and pulled her hand up to press a firm kiss on the back it, "Perhaps you would do me the pleasure of your company again tomorrow night for dinner?"

She opened her mouth to decline, uncomfortable with the idea of spending time with a ghost, but it seemed James saw it coming. He placed a hand on the small of her back and pushed her towards the door. A shiver went up her spine when she felt his hands there.

"Splendid! I shall send someone to fetch you at 7? Wonderful!"

Pushing her gently out the door, James stood in the doorway as she turned around to face him from the hall. Giving a charming smile, he said, "Pleasant dreams, Ms. Lowe," before shutting the door, leaving Lenore in the hall alone.

With no other choice, Lenore turned around and reentered her room. When the door was closed, she covered her face with her hands and slid down against the door until she sat on the floor. What was she going to do?

THANK YOU FOR READING! PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW

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