To think I would ever settle

It was a quiet night. There had only been a single person checking in since his arrival. So, he sat in his chair with his legs resting on his desk, flipping through some documents. Waiting. He’d waited close to three hours already. Not for any guests, otherwise, he'd gone out and lured some in, but for Joseph Blackwood to show up. However, he must have had better things to do because there had been no sign of him. Calvin had gotten irritated by this. For him to have backed out of their deal. But he also understood that sometimes other things got in the way, and so it remained at that, an annoyance. He then heard the door to the reception open and close shut before light footsteps crossed the wooden floor. Too light for it to be Joseph. But at least it meant his night wasn’t going to be completely dull.

He got up from his seat and walked towards the reception to meet the newly arrived guest. “Welcome to Alexis Capri,” he greeted with a polite smile. He discreetly glanced her up and down. She was human, hence fragile in his mind. Yet, she carried herself with a confidence he rarely saw when humans walked into the motel. If he had to guess, this wasn’t the first time she’d visited Southside. But regardless, it also meant that she was going to be much more fun to spend time with, and with Joseph having wasted enough of his time waiting, he was rather eager to spend the night doing something more enticing. He walked behind the counter as she requested a room for the night. Most people only stayed a single night as they were merely passing by. But the motel also had its more long-term guests. “What brings you to Southside?” he asked as he wrote up some paperwork, briefly glancing up to see her face as he'd asked this. To observe if she would lie. He then looked back down as he finished the document and turned it around to let her fill in the required information. Her name and phone number. “It'll be forty pounds for the night,” he informed her before he turned around to retrieve the key to her room. “You’re going to be in room 113. It's just down to your left. Check-out is at 11 am, and don't be alarmed if you hear any strange noises. We've been having problems with our pipes, but it should be fixed in a couple of days,” he said, smiling briefly, but still keeping the key firmly in his hand. Keeping her here for just a bit longer. It was a lie of course. The place was haunted, but one couldn't really expect much else from an old motel like this. A motel where many people had died. “Do you have any questions?

Tied up? Strange way of expression. But he just nodded. It wasn’t really an obvious lie, so he couldn’t tell whether this was the real reason for her stay. And her smile seemed genuine. Her whole aura did. Once she’d written down the information, and turned the page around, he noticed her surname. He had heard of the name Lelantos before. A family of hunters. He looked up at her again. As if that would reveal whether she was indeed one of them. It’d surely make sense to her being in Southside. But he couldn’t truly know. And besides, she'd surely not been there to hunt him. Checking into his motel in this manner. If she was a hunter, she was probably there to hunt someone else. He nodded to her question about taking cash. In fact, he preferred it. It was much easier to deal with regarding his illegal businesses. He took the bills in hand before he placed them in the cash register. He raised his blue eyes to her at her comment about the pipes. “Then you’ve come to the right place,” he said with another brief smile. She was most definitely guaranteed to get spooked. If not by the ghosts, then by him.

As it got to any questions, she asked about breakfast restaurants. Not that she’d ever get to be free by morning. “I can recommend a diner just two miles right of here. Sunny Side. We don’t provide breakfast as of now. But we do provide drinks of all kinds.” He pointed to a drink’s menu at the counter. He had a wide variety of liquor and an extensive bar, which wasn't so odd considering he had his own brand of rum. He had not bothered to invest in fixing the restaurant that the motel had, so it was mostly abandoned for now. He made plenty of money without having to do that. He then placed the key on the table. However, once she touched the key, she'd be the target of an illusion. She would think that she was walking down the hallway towards room 113. But in reality, she’d be led outside and towards a backdoor to a storage room. And there she'd walk through another door with a staircase leading down to a cold and dark basement. Except, to her, it'd look like a normal motel room. There'd be a bed, a dresser, a desk, and a bathroom. And it'd have the exact same atmosphere. But it looked much worse. And there'd be no windows as compared to the illusion. However, should she choose to go anywhere else than her room, she would be free to do so. The illusion wouldn’t affect any other part of the motel than the route to her room.

During the summer, when more guests checked in per night, he did open the lounge for drinks. And under the table, other things were dealt with. But it wasn’t profitable in the winter months. Not many came out here. It wasn’t exactly the ideal location as compared to the local bars in Southside. Of course, he could put money into renovating the place and attract more customers that way, but for the sake of avoiding additional attention, he didn’t. He hoped she would grab his bait and buy a drink. But instead, she gave him a conversational comment about it. So, spiking her drink was not going to be an option.

He sent her a polite smile as she took the key in her hand. “Enjoy your stay, Ms. Lelantos.” The smile vanished the moment she turned her back to him, and he pretended to look through some papers, his head tilted down but his gaze looking up at her. And just as he hoped, she walked in the designated direction. He tapped a finger on the edge of the counter, not really feeling the patience anymore tonight. He closed a folder and put it back before he walked towards the staircase, heading for the basement. “She was pretty.” The eerie voice of a child made him stop at the end of the last set of stairs. He looked over his shoulder to see the flickering figure of a little girl. Ella. A tragic story of an addict-mother leaving drugs on the table, and her twin daughters dying of an overdose because of it. Which then made the mother commit suicide. However, she hadn’t stayed. Leaving the two girls without their mother even in the spiritual world. “Yes, not many of those coming in here lately,” he said before he turned on the light in the basement and walked inside the boiler room. There he unlocked a cabinet to retrieve a gas canister. He then connected it to the ventilation system leading to the basement where Angel was. Letting out an inhalation gas that would sedate her. He stopped as the right dose was given before he closed off the duct and placed the canister back in the cabinet. He knew this method meant he had to wait. Wait until she had passed out and the air in the room had cleared. But it wasn’t easy when the rush first had a hold on you. So, until then he'd feel utterly restless.

He walked back upstairs and into his office to sit back down, his gaze overlooking the documents before he continued his work. Later, he called one of his employees to the reception, telling them to let him know if a Mr. Blackwood showed up. Not that he thought he would. But it was important for him to at least be prepared if he did. He then walked outside and towards her room. The interior of it was dark and gloomy. There were remains of blood splatter on the walls, and the water in the bathroom was ice cold. But it had the essentials. And surely, one couldn’t expect much else from a prison cell.
His gaze fell to the unconscious body of the brunette and he watched her for a moment. Because this was the last time he’d see her like that. Pure, clean, and perfectly unaware. He neared her to take off her jacket and shoes before he placed her on her back in the bed. He then moved over a rug in the middle of the room to open up a small cellar in the floor where a chain was. He grabbed the chain and locked it securely around her left ankle. Ensuring that she could walk around the room but not escape. They were enhanced by magic. Not because he thought the human had any powers. But since he sometimes trapped supernatural beings, he usually made use of this extra precaution. Then, for good measure, he grabbed some rope from the adjacent storage room and tied her wrists to the bed frame behind her. After all, she was most likely not going to take her imprisonment well.

The single lamp in the ceiling flickered slightly, turning the room pitch black before he again saw her peaceful face. He reached a hand down to her cheek, gliding it down her jaw and then her neck. Tightening his grip around it, a voice in his head pleading him to end her life now, but eventually, he let go. His ice blues found her phone that he unlocked with her fingerprint before he went over to sit with it at the table. He scrolled through her contacts for anyone noteworthy. She had tried to contact someone named Frederik, so he checked her text messages with him first. In order to make her family unaware of her disappearance, he planned to reply to them and mislead them about her whereabouts.

The sound of movement had him dart his gaze to his victim. Watching her as she awoke from the sedation. What the hell. “Not yet, Angel. You’re going to stay on Earth a few days longer,” he said calmly, then placing the phone back on the table as she’d gained his full attention. He rose from his seat and stepped towards her. A few days was only granted that he could resist his urge to kill her sooner. But he’d just fed on a soul yesterday, so he deemed she had a few days alive. And those days allowed him to play with her. A smile formed on his lips as she spoke again. “A refined touch, you say?” He sat down beside her, glancing menacingly down her body before his eyes found hers. “The doctor in me is slightly wounded by that, but the demon… Not so much.” He shrugged carelessly, then tilting his head to the side. “You’re a hunter, aren’t you?” he asked, having gathered a strong hint of this from her text messages. And from the last name. Lelantos. He had heard of this hunter family. Amongst many others. And if she confirmed that she indeed was related to them. If she was out for the likes of him. Then he was extremely satisfied with the position he’d now put her in. And he was sure that the demon population in Gaia would praise him for it. Now, he’d never actually been actively pursued by either angels or hunters, so he was slightly worried that he might be found out. That they somehow would connect her death to him. But so far, he always got away with his murders. And he was willing to do whatever it took to clear his name, so he didn’t think it’d become a problem this time either. “Are you the child of Leonardo and Samantha?” he asked, trying to get a better feel of who she was because if she was the daughter of them, he'd have to ensure that he played everything very subdued.