Chapter 3: Departure

Automatic doors slide to the side as we enter into the airport. I turned my neck in a circle, cracking it as I hauled my bags behind me. Abigail tagged along behind me with her luggage in tow. Upon entering we were greeted by two suited men.

"Hello, Mr. Blackwell, Ms. Townsend sent us to attend to you upon your arrival." the man said in a gray, monotonous voice

"Is that right?"

"Yes, sir. If you please, my associate, here will take yours and miss Mckay's luggage to be checked."

"Sure. Abigail hand him your bags. If there is anything you need for the flight grab it now."

"Will do Mr. Blackwell," she responded with a bit of excitement. I was happy to be rid of the heavy load myself.

"So where are we headed Mr...?"

"Just call me Mr. Smith. If you have everything you need for the trip; I will lead you towards the plane Ms. Townsend has arranged for you." he responded in his robotic voice

"Ok, Mr. Smith, lead the way."

"As you wish sir."

Walking through the hallway of the airport I looked through the windows to see the outside. Thick bunches of leaves filled my gaze, hiding anything else from view. It seemed the organization didn't want ordinary people finding this place. Certainly made the drive here long and annoying. As we continued through the facility we made our way outside onto the side of one of the runways. Looking to the right I saw a plane taxiing out of one of the hangers. Stopping at a safe distance, one of the doors opened, bringing down a flight of stairs which Alice stepped out onto.

"Benjamin where have you been? We had half a mind to leave without you."

"Well sorry, it ain't my fault you put this place in the middle of nowhere."

Alice rebuffed me saying,

"Well, it's not like we can just place this facility out in the open. You know as well as I do, world governments want to keep us and our work covert."

"Look, I get it. You stop complaining, I'll stop complaining, and we can get on our way."

Walking up the stairs and onto the plane, I made note of those onboard. I recognized Malik sitting near the front, his face buried in a book.

"How are conditions looking for the flight. Will we be delayed at all?" Alice asked our pilot

"No ma'am, things are looking ok for now. Nothing too problematic should be able to form before we get there." He answered confidently

"Thank you, Captain..." Alice continued to speak with the pilot as I moved towards the back of the plane. As I walked I could see two faces I did not recognize. One was the face of a woman with a scar on the right cheek that grabbed your eyes. she was typing something on a laptop that she had in her lap and did not notice me. The other person was a man who slept arms crossed. He had short dark hair and wore black gloves on both hands. Reaching the back I took a seat in the front facing chair and gazed out the window. Soon enough an announcement came up on the PA system.

"Please take your seats and fasten seatbelts. We will be taking off in the next ten minutes. The trip should take about twelve hours."

Resting my head back I looked out the window to see the plane starting to move when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a body sitting down in the rear-facing chair in front of me. It was Alice.

"Do you need something?" I inquired

"Not much, I simply wanted to discuss a few things with you."  she answered

"Is that right?" I responded

"Yes, it is,"

"Alright then. I guess I do have a question to ask." I acquiesced

"We can start with your questions. I can probably guess what they are."

'"Yeah I bet you could. First off, who are the new faces."

"You'll be given a full briefing on that when we arrive. For now, let's just say the higher-ups think we are going to need more than just you and Malik to deal with Lucian. Once you are briefed at HQ you will be given an opportunity to meet each of them."

"Ok, so these are agents that I'm going to be working with. What are their specialties?"

"Well, I don't think the board can get too pissed if I give their names and combat specialties. The woman's name is Sofia Richter. She is a long-range combat specialist. She has been reassigned from our European division. The man is Yuichi Arima from our Asia division. He is a short-range combat specialist. Obviously, you have met Malik, similar to you he is proficient with combat at multiple different distances. You will have the opportunity to witness all of their skills upon our arrival at HQ."

"What' with the "The board can't get too pissed if I..." I asked

"They've been tightening the belt on classified info lately. Technically I wasn't even supposed to give you their names. But, I can trust you to keep your mouth shut. Right?"

"No worries I'll be silent as the grave."

"Excellent. knew I could count on you."

"So I take it we will be acting as a unit."

"That is correct. You will receive all the details when we arrive."

"Got it. Anything else you want to discuss?"

"Actually that is about it. I just didn't want these people to be complete unknowns when you officially get introduced." Alice began to get up but I stopped her

"Oh, I just remembered something. I need a favor."

"What do you need?"

"I was hoping you could get permission for Abby to use the databases there. I'm not askin you to declassify anything but just get her access to most of the information there."

"Sure. That shouldn't be an issue. It might take a little time because she's not an agent but I should be able to get her clearance to use it.

"Well, then I guess I should thank you for that."

"No thanks are needed," said Alice as she stood up from where she was sitting and moved to a different row. Having nothing else to do I nodded off. Later, I was awoken by a jerk on my left shoulder. It was Abby.

"Hm. Uhhh. Oh, Abby did you need something?"

"Not really, it's just that I was craving some conversation and I don't really know any of the other people here. I'm sorry for waking you up. That was pretty rude of me."

"Don't worry about it. Were Malik and Alice not available?"

"Malik and Alice have been talking and looking at something on her computer the last couple hours, I didn't want to disturb their work. Plus I still don't know either of them that well. I've only had the one talk with Malik and I've only really been introduced to Alice."

"Ok, I see where you're comin from. Sit down. Was there anything, in particular, you wanted to ask about?"

"I did have a few questions if you don't mind."

"I guess that depends on what yer askin, but I should be able to help ya."

"Ok uh...I guess I should just get to the point. Why did you bring me along? I mean, I'm extremely grateful but I don't really understand what I'm supposed to do there."

With a sigh, I told her

"Well, if I'm being honest bringing you along was not my idea. When Alice offered to bring you along I didn't feel like I could say no." 

"I figured that might be the case. Sorry for the bother." said Abby with a growing tone of disappointment as she placed her head in her hands and sighed 

"However the more time has passed the more I'm beginning to think this could be a good opportunity for you." I told Abby. Upon hearing this she brought her face back up and made eye contact

"Ok. Really? What do you want me to do?"

"Well, I've wanted you to learn the ins and outs of vampires before your combat training.  So far we've used my personal collection of books, but the library we have back in London is nothing compared to the databases we can access at HQ. It's a major opportunity for you to learn about some of the stronger vampires we have hunted down in the past, allowing you to see what some of these monsters can really do."

"Oh wow, that sounds pretty cool. Thank you, Mr. Blackwell."

"Yeah and uh... one more thing."

"Huh? what?"

"There are also a lot of high-quality training facilities there. I don't think it is an opportunity I can pass up in good conscience. I will allow you to begin training for combat while we are there." I told Abby whose face lit up with excitement.

"Thank you, boss, I won't let you down." She said giving me a hug.

"Ok, Ok, calm down. Wait until you start training to thank me ok? You might not seem so eager once we get started."

"Yes, sir!" She told me as she returned to her seat, making little celebration motions as she moved. I was glad to see her happy but I didn't mention my ulterior motives. It had been Alice who wanted to bring her to HQ, that made me uneasy. I was afraid Alice would try to put here through the "meatgrinder". To avoid that I decided to train her myself while we were there. Secondly and most importantly, if Lucian gets aggressive and attacks us directly, I want Abby to be capable of defending herself. Then, laying back in my seat, I began to sleep again.  

Author's Note

As you can probably tell I haven't come up with a name for "the organization". Suggestions are welcome.