by Anthology
She paused and asked, "And you know this because?"
"Think about it, why the ice? If you're going to harvest a person's organs, you use the ice on the organs, not the body. And why just the kidneys? If you're going to do that, you're going to kill the person— there's no way around it really. The human body is so fragile, it can't handle that sort of procedure without extensive preparation and medication. No, if someone is going to cut up a body for spare parts, they're going to take them all. The black market for organs in third world countries is lucrative, but hearts and lungs are the top two cash cows. Kidneys are after livers."
Her eyes were wide open after he rambled off his explanation. "Now I'm definitely freaking out."
"Don't be, please, let me pay your tab."
"How can I not be?"
He sighed and looked down at the bar before looking back up at her. "I'm sorry. Can I start over? I'm terrible at trying to play this game."
"Game?"
"Yes, the game of social interaction. I'm not used to having to win people over."
"You prefer the chemical soaked rag method to dating?"
He blinked and then laughed. "Dating? No, not exactly."
"I'll pay for my own drinks, thank you," Selena said and slapped two twenties down on the bar. It was more than the lemondrops were worth, but she had no intention of waiting for her change. She turned and marched off, moving as fast as her heels would let her without running or looking like a fool.
She glanced back twice as she left the lounge. He was nowhere to be seen, but she had the tickle on the back of her neck that said she was being watched. She turned and ducked into a row of slot machines she walked past. She kept moving, dodging gamblers and waitresses alike as she threaded her way through the casino and emerged near a hallway. The elevators were down and to the right, which was exactly where she wanted to go.
For once they were even open and waiting. Selena slipped between the doors as they started to close and glanced at the young couple that leaned back in surprise. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Almost missed it."
"Uh, that's cool. That you made it, I mean," the man stammered.
"What floor?" the girl asked.
Selena looked her over and noted the slinky black dress and matching heels. Diamond earrings and necklace too. She was somebody's princess, probably one of the daughters of the executives that came for the job fair. Or, as Selena liked to call her, a rich bitch.
"Seventeen," she said.
The man pressed the button and they rode up in silence the entire way. Selena noticed the button for the second to the top floor was lit up. Definitely a rich bitch.
She slid through the doors as they opened and paused to kick her shoes off. She picked them up and walked in comfort down the hallway. She smiled as she neared her room. That old guy had tried to pick her up! Why would he think she was interested, she was there for the convention, not to find a sugar daddy. Did he think she was moonlighting as a prostitute, or something?
She grinned at the thought and realized two drinks was her limit. The third might have been a bad idea. Laughing at the situation was the last thing she should be doing. Reporting him to the hotel's security, on the other hand, would be better. Then again, he hadn't said or done anything to harm her. Was he harmless? Had she, in fact, passed up an opportunity?
"There you are."
Selena screamed and jumped a few inches off the ground. She'd been watching the pattern on the carpet, not the hallway ahead of her. Now there he was, at her door. Waiting.
"Selena, please, let me start over."
And he knew her name.
4
"Shit!"
The man's face darkened. "Please, wait."
Selena turned and looked down the hallway behind. Nothing. Nobody was walking down the hall, not even one of the cleaners or maids or whatever they were called. She was alone. With him.
"Stay away from me!" She warned.
He pressed his lips together and let out a heavy breath through his nose. He looked irritated. Maybe his victims usually didn't resist?
"Leave me alone and I won't call the cops," she said. "Please, just leave me alone."
"Call the cops, I don't care about them. I care about you."
She heard herself whimper and shook her head. This couldn't be happening! She was too young to die. She'd worked so hard to get where she was, she didn't want it to be for nothing. She— wait, what was he talking about?
"Miss Judge, I want to talk to you about a job."
Selena's heart dropped out of her throat at the same time her eyes narrowed. "A…job?"
"Yes, a job. Not a service and not something inappropriate."
"A job," she repeated, just to make sure.
He smiled. "Yes. Well, no. Not just a job, more of a career."
"A career?"
The man looked up at the ceiling and then down the hallway and back. "Seems there's an echo in this passage."
His odd choice of words kick started her brain back into rational thinking mode. "Who calls a hallway a passage?"
"Sorry, you've got me out of sorts," he admitted. "I'm not accustomed to this sort of thing."
She turned and looked back down the hallway. There was only one bank of elevators in this tower to her floor. "How did you beat me here? How did you even know what room I was staying in?"
"I checked into you after I first spotted you," he said. "You have a lot of potential and I find myself in need of someone with your qualifications. Dire need."
"Dire need," she repeated, dropping her voice in an attempt to match his. "Nobody says that either."
"I do."
The attempt at a grin fell from her face at his matter of fact answer. She swallowed and nodded. "Not a job, a career. And you know more than anybody has a right to for having just met me. Is this some kind of government espionage thing? If you tell me and I say no, are you going to kill me?"
He chuckled. "No, not the government. I assure you, you'll be quite safe. Safer, perhaps, if you do say no. And there's no espionage going on. Can we talk somewhere more private?"
"Is this where you tie me up and harvest my organs. All of them, not just the kidneys?"
He smirked. "I want your entire body, Selena, not just your organs."
"Still creepy."
He sighed and gestured at her door. "Please? I'll let you search me to be certain I have no weapons."
"You're a big guy. Let me guess, six three? Maybe one ninety? Enough to outweigh me by a lot. I took a lot of self-defense courses. Martial arts. Your big and lanky, I could kick your ass if I needed to."
"I don't doubt it," he said with a smirk. "And I'm two oh two."
"I was going to say two hundred," she admitted. "I didn't want to insult you."
"None taken. Now, about that privacy?"
"We can't talk out here? I'd feel a lot better about it."
"The walls have ears. My business and my offer is confidential. I have, shall we say, business rivals that would love to learn about this predicament I'm in."
"Oh! So you're going to cut me open and stuff me full of drugs, then send me somewhere to have them taken out. Yeah, I saw that movie. No thanks."
He jerked his head back in surprise. "You are a suspicious woman! That's good. I have no interest in drugs."
"Then what. Tell me that much or I'm out of here."
He sighed. "You're very frustrating."
"You're the one stalking me," she pointed out.
He nodded. "So it appears. And, I confess, every skirmish we have convinces me more that I've chosen wisely."
"Chosen what?"
"You, Selena. I need an assistant. Someone who will— no, I can't discuss that openly. As I said, it's a career, not a starter job."
"What happened to the last one?"
"There has never been another one."
Selena's eyes narrowed. "I have an MBA in business. You want me to be your secretary? Who are you?"
"Not a secretary, my assi
stant. Someone who handles my affairs for me when I'm unable to, for whatever reason. Someone who knows the intimate details of my life and who will act accordingly on them as we deem necessary."
Selena raised an eyebrow. "I see. And what's this pay?"
"Name your price."
She gasped and then laughed. "Yeah, right. A million bucks!"
"Signing bonus, or annual salary?"
Her mouth dropped.
He laughed. "I'm kidding. That was cruel of me, I'm sorry."
Selena scowled. "I knew it. This is all bullshit, isn't it?"
His smile faded and his voice dropped to a pitch that made her back stiffen and her breath catch in her throat. "The offer for a life-altering career is very real, Miss Judge. Let me leave you with this, my name. Look me up tonight so you can see that I'm serious. Krenn Regent."
Selena's eyes narrowed as she tried to place the name. She shook her head. "Nope, nothing. Never heard of you. Crayon?"
"Krenn."
"Ken?"
"K. R. E. N. N." He spelled out and reached into the pocket of his suit. He pulled out a business card and slipped it into the card slot in the door. "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of me. Look me up and give me a call if you would like to have that private meeting."
"In my room?"
"On your terms," he said. "I have offices in Vegas."
"Sure you do," Selena said. "Fine, you back away and I'll go into my room and check you out. Your card, not… never mind."
He smiled and began to back away down the hall. "I understand."
Selena watched him. Was this really happening? From well-dressed stranger to creeper and now back to attractive gentleman? "If I wake up and this was all just a really weird dream…"
"It's not," he insisted. Mr. Regent. "I can change your world, Selena, but you need to decide that you want it changed. There will be no going back."
"Okay, just stop," she said and put her hand out with her palm toward him. "Every time you start seeming normal you go and do something creepy like that. You just don't know when to stop, do you?"
He grinned. "I don't stop until I have what I want."
"See, there you go being creepy again. Goodbye, Mr. Regent."
"Goodbye, Selena," he said with a nod of his head. "Until tomorrow."
Selena glanced down at the card in her hand and read his name on it next to a silver embossed crown on the left side of the card. Under his name was a phone number. She glanced back up to speak but her words froze in her throat. He was gone. She spun around, only to find the hallway was empty in that direction too.
Selena blew out her breath and shook her head. Either she needed another drink or she needed to stop drinking. She dropped her heels and stepped back into them before checking the hallway again. Satisfied she was alone, she tapped the card against her palm and reached into her purse to take out her room card. She would look him up, but first she needed to get out of her tight dress and into something comfy.
And then she'd try to sleep and go back to the miserable job fair tomorrow. Eccentric stranger or not, she still needed a job.
5
Selena grunted as her arm was twisted and forced up against her back. Her breath hissed through her mouth, making her pant as she struggled for release. She felt the tiny sliver of metal between her fingers and, with a triumphant cry, jerked the zipper down on the back of her dress.
She slumped forward, letting the shoulder straps of her dress slide off her shoulders. She pushed the snug fabric down her body and over her hips until it pooled on the floor. Free at last, she took in a deep breath and let it out with a grateful moan.
"Finally," she breathed. Selena stepped out of the small pile and opened up her suitcase. She snatched out her shorts and tank top and then went to the bathroom to freshen up for bed. She emerged a few minutes later, itching her tingling scalp from where she'd removed the bobby pins that held her hair in place.
"Okay, Crayon, let's see how colorful you really are," she said as she scooped her tablet up out of her suitcase. Selena hopped on her bed and put her back to the headboard before waiting for the iPad to connect to the hotel's wireless. Once it was ready she tapped the browser icon and typed his name in.
She clicked on link after link and searched through the websites and pages. Some wanted money for a profile or a classmate link, others had snippets of information or appearances. She pieced together the bits and pieces of information to paint a picture of a man that was a board member of an international company called Continuum. What Continuum was, exactly, took several more searches.
Continuum was an umbrella organization. They held interests in companies in multiple countries and industries. She discovered a few easy ones, minerals like bauxite and platinum, as well as some petroleum interests. There were more though, many more. Layers upon layers probably. She was only scratching the surface.
And Krenn Regent was on the board that owned them all. There was no way a man like that was interested in her though, somebody had picked her out to be a gullible Midwestern girl he could have his way with. She typed his name in again, only this time she focused on an image search.
Selena's iPad fell from her fingers onto her lap when the pictures started popping up on her display. Every one of them looked just like the man she'd spoken to. The man she'd laughed at and called a creep. The man who's name she made fun of. Crayon— Krenn— wasn't a deadbeat or a pimp, he was legitimate. More than legitimate, he had to be at least a millionaire. Given the businesses he was involved in, that probably didn't do him justice. More likely he was a billionaire. Or more… if there was such a thing.
Selena looked at where she'd tossed his card on the stand beside the bed. That was real. He was real. Or an incredible actor. She snapped her fingers and picked up her iPad. This time she did a media search and hunted until she found him recorded during a session of congress where he was discussing renewable energy. She waited while it loaded and then listened as he talked. It took less than three seconds for her to be sure he was the same man she'd tried to run away from twice.
"Wow," she muttered. She looked at his card again, focusing on his phone number this time. She checked the clock next to her bed, it was almost two in the morning already!
"I'll call him tomorrow," she mumbled. She returned to her iPad to see what else she could learn about him. She began reading again when the air conditioner in her room switched from cooling to fan mode. It sounded strange, like something was trapped in a vent and flapping.
She turned in her bed to face the air conditioner. Was something wrong with it? Was it going to break in the middle of the night? Should she call the front desk?
She put her tablet on the table and rolled across the queen sized bed. The lights of the city shown through the tinted windows, darkening the city as much as anything could darken Las Vegas. Her room wasn't on the side looking down on either the strip or the hotel's pools, making it a little cheaper for her.
She started to turn away from the view to the air conditioner when a dark shape blotted out some of the lights. It passed from left to right and disappeared. Selena froze and studied the cityscape. After several seconds the lights were blotted out again, this time from right to left and only over a small spot. The bird— it had to be a bird, what else could be that big and also that small— disappeared out of her view on the left.
"That's weird," Selena mumbled. She watched a few seconds longer and then decided it didn't matter. Probably a buzzard or something, they had those in the desert, didn't they? Nothing she cared about, she needed to read up more on Crayon and his empire and then get some sleep.
She smirked at her continued mocking of his name. It wasn't nice and she knew she shouldn't do it, but it was so easy!
Selena's smile disappeared in a hiss of inhaled air. Somebody was scratching at her door. She heard the latch rattle as someone tried it. Her eyes flicked up to the safety latch. She'd forgotten to close it. But whoever it was couldn't get through the main lo
ck, could he?
Something big slammed into the window behind her. Selena screamed and jumped onto the bed. She rolled over and caught sight of not one, but two figures outside her window. Human shaped and sized figures. Except they had wings. Wings. They were moving them— their wings— flapping them, and holding onto the top of the outside of the window.
"What— No! No…people… don't have wings…"
The door rattled again, only this time it sounded different. Selena gasped and spun so fast she tripped on the edge of the bed and fell back over the corner of it. She hit the floor on her hip and cried out as she rolled onto her back.
Selena put her daily crunches to good use and jerked herself up to her elbows. A single man stepped in through the open door. His dark hair was pulled into a pony tail and he wore a suit that looked like it wasn't big enough to hold him. His shoulders had shoulders of their own, he was so wide.
"What— who—"
The man turned and reached back to shut the door behind him. He took a moment, leaving her confused until she heard the sound of the deadbolt clicking shut. When he faced her again he started toward her and rolled his shoulders. She followed his thick arms down to where his hands emerged from the cuffs of the sleeves. They were covered in leather gloves. Dark and leathery, with lines that looked like outlined scales. His thumb and fingers were covered in the same strange gloves, including his long and pointed fingernails that looked like talons.
"Shit!" she hissed. He wasn't wearing gloves! "I can wake up any time now…"
The man with the claws smiled, revealing white teeth with points no man not spending a life sentence in prison deserved to have.
That wasn't the only offensive thing about him. He smelled musty, the same musty stink she'd been assaulted with earlier at the fair. Had he been there? Watching her?
She shook her head and scrambled back on her elbows and feet. She twisted as she scurried across the floor, getting her hands and knees beneath her so she could rise up. One of the creatures outside her window slammed into the thick glass again right in front of her. Cracks spread across the glass, making her jump back until her legs hit the bed.
