He pulled away, and she grabbed his head, letting out a protest and trying to bring him back. “Come on,” she breathed, her voice urgent. Her skin felt hot from the alcohol and the desire, and quite frankly, she was sick of waiting.
Reykon grinned above her, and she gave a carefree laugh, throwing her head back and letting her shoulders shake. He was still standing, so she reached for his jacket, gripping the fabric and pulling him closer. “Come on!” she insisted with another laugh.
She saw a flash of blue, as he pulled something out of the pocket.
A moment later, everything went black.
Reykon
Reykon closed the blue pouch concealed in his jacket. Knockout powder was relatively safe (unless the subject was close to alcohol poisoning) and worked without fail. He brushed the hair away and looked at her peaceful expression, her soft lips, now slightly parted. A hand on her shoulder gave a gentle nudge, and then a stronger one. She didn’t move. She’d be out for at least five hours, probably longer. That was good, because he had work to do.
Her legs were hanging off the bed, splayed out, and he moved them so that she was sideways, but fully on the bed.
“Sweet dreams,” he said quietly, taking another look at her. She really was beautiful, and he felt another stir of emotion. There was a time and place for those feelings and, much to his annoyance, it wasn’t now. He stowed it and focused on the job.
Reykon surveyed the room and looked for his first task – preparation. Most of his job involved killing scumbags and low-lifes, but a fair portion of his assignments were to be brought back alive. Vampires were viciously greedy creatures; they saw something they wanted, and they took it. Or rather, they got one of their strongbloods to collect it. One time, he’d been recruited to find a girl in southern California, with the only information being that she had ‘eyes of the purest gold’. It took a month to track her down, but sooner or later, Reykon had found her and Magnus Demonte had gotten his prize. Needless to say, vampires and strongbloods accounted for a large portion of unsolved human trafficking crimes.
Because of this, Reykon had developed a pretty good rhythm for these assignments.
He opened up the closet doors and looked on the shelf, finding a duffel bag stuffed in the corner. First, clothes. He grabbed a week’s worth of comfortable looking outfits; things he would imagine she’d want to wear while being trapped in a car with him. For the kidnappee, being abducted was a terribly inconvenient turn of events, and he tried to do what he could to make it less horrible. These missions were Reykon’s least favorite kind. He found it easy to kill a criminal, but harder to watch some young man or woman grow more panicked with every mile that brought them further from their home and closer to their eventual enslavement.
He went through her dresser, selecting items that he imagined she wore the most, and then moved to the bathroom. Toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush. Quick check for contacts, finding that she wore none. He grabbed a box of tampons (you never know) and a zip up bag that looked like it held her makeup. Robin probably wasn’t going to put much lipstick on, but hey, better safe than sorry.
He’d checked her medical records, finding no history of asthma or dire allergies that would require an epi-pen (yes, that had happened to him once). Finally, he grabbed two pairs of sensible shoes, putting one in the duffle bag, and bringing the other back into her room.
He crouched next to her and undid the straps on her heels, exchanging them for a pair of white ankle socks and comfortable Converse.
Reykon took a quick look at her outfit. The high-waisted jeans and dark red blouse with multiple cutouts wasn’t the most convenient choice when someone was transporting your unconscious body, but he figured it would make her more uncomfortable if she woke up in different clothes, so he let it be.
Lastly, and the most difficult aspect of the assignment, follow-up.
Nearly everybody that lived in the human world had other humans that would miss them or question not hearing from them for a while. He’d researched Robin Wright for a few days, finding a string of ex’s that wouldn’t be calling her back, a few close friends that had fanned out across the U.S., and her parents, whom she maintained contact with on a regular basis. He’d been pondering a situation that wouldn’t raise eyebrows and had settled on an impromptu vacation to Cancun with a friend from college that the Wrights would have no chance of contacting.
He formed a text message with her usual wording, punctuation, and emojis, and then read it again, opting to wrap it up with “I love you!”. It was a small gesture, but he found that closure helped those being kidnapped. Well, as much as it could.
He stood in front of the door and did a final inventory. Duffel, yes. Follow up, yes. Minimal evidence left behind, yes. So, it was time. He hung close to the window that overlooked the street and waited. It was nearing 1 a.m. when the cars had slowed to increments of every thirty seconds or so. He scanned for walkers, bikers, and drunk couples, but hadn’t seen anybody in a while.
He snuck a last-minute glance into the room, finding that Robin hadn’t moved an inch, and then brought the duffel bag down to his car. There wasn’t a better loading place, seeing as the old apartment building didn’t even have a lot.
But in reality, it only took fifteen seconds to load somebody into a vehicle. The first ‘live capture’ assignment he’d had, the realization of how easy it was to make someone disappear had hit him hard. Here they were, surrounded by people and houses, and it only took a few opportune seconds to
