Panning my head from one side of the room to the other a few times, there were in fact a total of thirteen of them, my gut instincts were telling me that the two hired help outside had taken their armaments away before they had entered so maybe my job wouldn't be so difficult after all. Not wanting to start a fistfight the second I walked in the door, however, my tactic was to offer them a somewhat dishonest and disingenuous grin and curl my lips back behind my teeth as I sat down in the first available chair I could locate. In many ways it called back to my memory, albeit ever so faintly, the tales of Odysseus and the others who would dwell in such places so overrun with the likes of the blackened and belittled that the only true way to progress through was to mimic their movements. A lone sheep poorly trying to paint the smeared remains of a fallen comrade to my sides in a vein plea to convince the predators above and below that I could fight, and or kill, any of them if they so forced me to do so. Their attention had returned to each other and soon enough they all had began to take up some menial conversation amongst themselves, my own ears only managing to pick up small fragments of the topics, although one of them had left our company to walk over to a door at the far end of the room where I assumed that it was a bedroom or bathroom. Most of the space was uninterrupted by any sort of dividing wall or structure, a design choice im sure was to ensure that as many comforts could be added and that having dozens of people in the room at once wasn't an issue.

As even with the fifteen bodies between the door and stretching outward towards the ostentatious mini-bar their hadn't been the feeling that room was in short supply, we all still had enough room to get up and move about or whatever else we wished. Most of my company had seemed fairly well-to-do even beyond the mental expectation that they had to give away a million dollars just as an entrance fee, as each of them had worn presumably silk or satin or some other fine material that was overpriced and tailored to their body type, these men all smiled and were cordial with each other but none the less I knew that they were all snakes in turn. The situation had just given them no reason to sink their teeth into anything in particular, except for maybe myself, but their focus was fixed on the door as it swung open and a small band of women were nudged out into the plain sight where we all could see. They were corralling them into our field of vision, with three of them standing before us and at least twice that much still clustered into a corner within the dimly lit room from which they came, their eyes were distant and glazed over in about as much shock as anybody else would be in such a traumatic situation as this. Each of their hands had been tied together with a sort zip-tie, although by the burn mark around their wrists it had seemed that it they had latched it onto them as if they were cattle, the man who had brought them in now raised the hands of the one girl and began in a bit of a slur. The pitch was all wrong, and some of his words had curled off of his tongue in such a way that made it seem as though he was struggling to pronounce the proper English in the fashion he so desired to, falling somewhere between inebriation and incompetence. The woman's face was obscured by a plain red mask, as they all were know that better light was given to that particular section of the room, but her knees were trembling as the man began to rattle off a starting bid as well as some very off color remarks about this girl.

"Young Sarah here...she wanted to be a dancer...on broadway, well. I'm sure that she will make one of you...a very, very, happy man. She...is very docile and obedient, she just needed to be broken in a bit first, im afraid." He cackled as my fist almost snapped off from how firmly I was grasping my chair, eyes practically coming out of my skull in disgust at the words. "Now, can we start the bidding at...say...five million?"

five...

five and a half...

six...

seven...

For what seemed like an eternity they prattled off one figure after another, the lot of them all up in arms at the idea that someone else claiming their prize which they had set in their mind was solely theirs to have. My stomach far too quickly becoming unsettled and the room slowly beginning to spin, I needed to gather my things and get to work, or in the very least leave the room as soon as humanly possible and try to contact Temptress. Face flushed, my collar already popped out and being used as a makeshift fan to cool off my soiled brow, my exit from the room was not ignored in the slightest and that very same man now bore his matching set of yellow teeth at me and took his eyes off of the girl beside him. There were a few words exchanged between himself and the company, as well as a tainted chorus of laughter in response to whatever had been said, and then I shook my head to not only focus on the ways out of the room...but also my options to talk my way out of a bloodbath.

"It's a shame...so kids have so much money...and not enough common sense to tell them that there are places where they shouldn't be poking around in. Didn't your parents ever tell you about that? Or maybe...he he maybe they were too busy so they paid some bitch maid to do their job for them, huh? Is that it." Not. One. Word. My facial expression wasn't one to be misinterpreted, as it said that I was inches away from bludgeoning him to death the item nearest to me before going a few rounds with the others just for good cardio. But my time would come, as I bolted out from the confines of the suite and rounded the corner like the wraths of hells domain were behind me, and returned to the maintenance closet and changed into my outfit with only the balance of a drowned duck and the light from the door being opened a mere six inches for guidance. As I made my way back through the halls, my entire costume draped over my being and the harsh guttural sounds of a poor ability to breathe through the small slit that the mask had provided being all that would accompany me. Those very same men still stood in my way, and now they weren't going to be so kind as to offer me a spot inside if I guessed the magic number, and rather then start of scoffing at my appearance they immediately had began to reach for something attached to their hip and just beyond my sight.

"There's only two of you..." I grunted with even blinking, as I knew all too well that they took note of that through the mask, their lips held open in a suspenseful hesitation at my ghostly presence, although this soon was brushed off as they each pulled what I then could tell was a stun-gun from their side holster and the confidence was now shifted to their end.

"Listen, fucker, you're a few weeks late for Halloween. So, unless you want to get ten thousand volts shot straight up your ass, you'll get the fuck out of here." He threatened, extra emphasis being placed on his little toy.

"Listen, I don't judge people for their life choices, but you're in my way so im going to tell you what im going to do. I'll start by taking that stun gun, and shoving it straight up your ass...just seeing as you seem to love that so much." I fired back, a swift reprisal as his fist came at me and landed just on the nose, a trickle of blood being felt running down my face from within the mask telling me that his strike had been enough to break it. "Not bad...now it's my turn."

His nose curled in the heat of his fierce game face, or at least that's what he was going for, and he decided to stick with what he already knew had worked at sent another punch my way which still managed to turn my face all the way to the left. What he hadn't known was that I had been counting on him throwing the second punch, and once he committed to it I took the chance to wrap both of my arms around him from underneath his armpits, and with his body mostly immobilized I took the one hand and confiscated his weapon which would seconds later send two small forks into the torso of his friend. Wriggling around on the floor, convulsing and muttering unintelligible and garbled gibberish, now it was just to get rid of him; however, as he struggled against my grasp the door came into view front and center and I had an idea come to mind that I though might just work. For as I stood outside of the door and silenced his attempts to call further attention to the two of us, I thought to myself that with the right amount of force I might just have a more efficient way to enter the room, after all.

"How much do you weigh?" I angrily questioned him, allowing him some more freedom to draw enough air to his lungs to answer.

"Fuck you!" He shouted as best as he could.

"Yeah...you'll do." I said under my breath, mostly to myself.