Three plane rides later and I was in Brisbane Australia. After twenty four hours of Airplane madness you would think I would want to shut down, but the need to get more of this case done urged me to continue.

I was to meet Kurt at the Surfers Paradise, a local hot spot beach in the Gold Coast. As I stood, ankles deep in the sand, I reflected a bit. This case was different; normally I got information and location and did the kill and was on my way. Now I am digging for information and the location to hopefully make a kill.

‘When I find this Quest, I am gonna kill him extra slowly and painfully.’ I thought, as I took a seat on the pristine beach.

“Miss, Versey” a gruff southern voice with a slight Auzzie twinge called. I got up to face Castle.

“Kurt” I offered back

“Let’s take a walk”

-o-

Cassia and Kurt walked along the beach for ten minutes. As they walked in silence, sand became pavement, the steel buildings grew larger and became more intimidating and they moved to a more secluded area. Finally they reached a deserted covered under passage.

Kurt turned to Cassia. “Now I assume you want to know about Quest” he stated looking down at cassia. Not waiting for her to speak, he continued.

“You see Miss Versey, Quest was a very high profile agent in a very high profile project” Kurt paused

“Black ops” Cassie offered furrowing her brow.

“Somewhat, Miss Versey, Quest in the eyes of everyone, except those who are apart of my sector and now you assassins, doesn’t exist; Quest never happened”

Cassia was confused and Kurt saw this. He sighed “Have you heard about The Guild?”

Cassia frowned. “The Guild” she repeated as a small sense of dread filled her stomach. The name was familiar but for the life of her, Cassia couldn’t place it.

“Yes, the Guild. You see to understand Quest you have to understand the Guild.”

-o-

Some times people… well that’s just the thing, sometimes people aren’t really people, and things aren’t what they seem.

The Guild was an organization of spies and assassins. They were masters of their trade. Some of these men and women were human and others…well they were something else, something darker.

The government had the pleasure of capturing a Guild member once. They studied the non human extensively before they were able to create their own.

This was the birth of Quest.

This was the first step for the United States to have the best army, assassins and spies’ money could buy. This would insure their dominance and order in the world.

Quest was number 3656 in project Blackhart. The babe was the bastard child of the captured Guild member, a top notch government official, good breeding genetics, and a test tube.

Nine months later the child, no more than a few hours old was taken back to the Guild. Stolen. All the time, money, countless searching, and sperm and eggs to get the babe and now it took all the time, money and countless searching to get the babe back.

That child was the only successful thing to happen out of that wasteful experiment and now it was gone. It was supposed to be their killing machine. Theirs.

Well they fixed that problem, but now Quest was threatening to ruin the very fragile foundation that they had set for their replacement and they would be damned if they let that happened.

That’s where the child prodigy came in.

-o-

After the history lesson, Kurt gave me two names and a place: Operation Blackhart, Lt. Alejandro Medina, and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. I left Kurt to go to my hotel room to think, plan, and sleep. “Rio, here I come.”

-o-

I find Rio Disgusting. Now I love booze and sex but I don’t wanna see some coked up baby doll trying to pimp herself out for some blow. It’s disappointing.

Anyway it was my fourth day in Rio (on the first day I was knocked out, the second day I partied, and the third day I was hung over). Today was my meeting with Alejandro at some gothic club, Luxuria Do Sangue, in the back alleys of the city.

I got a call yesterday (i.e. the day my head wanted to explode) from Medina’s people. I was to be at his club tonight at 12 sharp in dark clothing. He was one of those weirdoes’s who liked to meet at clubs because of all the free booty.

And so I spent most of my day sleeping, checking information, selecting weapons, fixing the wire in my bra, further securing my room, finding and studying blueprints to the club, making exit strategies, straightening out my shit, and picking out the perfect outfit.

‘Leather is out of the question’ I thought eyeing a black leather jumpsuit distastefully. ‘That was outfit 47, let’s try outfit number 48’. All of my outfits either didn’t fit or were not climatically acceptable. Finally I chose I dark red balconette dress with black stiletto boots.

I looked like walking sex.

After I laid out my outfit, I took a shower, did my hair and make up, and called a cab. As the clock struck 10, I was on my way to the club.

-o-

Dark jaded eyes overlooked the dance floor. The bodies of buxom blonds and brunettes moved seductively against their partners. Alistair paid them no mind; he was searching for some one far better.

“There she is.”

And boy, did she dress to impress, her dark skin glowed and that dress drove him crazy with lust and need.

“That is her?” an interested voice asked. He turned to the face of their companion, a pale blond eyebrow raised. “She is mine.” Alistair growled, vermillion begin bleeding into his eyes. His companion raised his hands in defeat while he moved over to his plush couches in the VIP room they inhabited.

“I’ll have Laura call her up.”

Alistair glared at the man on the couch. “Don’t screw up, traitor” he sneered, baring his fangs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it”

-o-

Ok, so Luxuria Do Sangue was a weird place, but then again if a club has a name that means bloodlust, it can’t be normal. The place had three levels: Underworld, Purgatory, and Hell. Underworld was easy enough to get into, Purgatory had a list, and if you weren’t invited nor had access to blueprints, you didn’t even know about Hell.

So I walked in the poorly lit club and noticed that it was something straight out of a b-rated horror movie. The set ups was black and dungeon-esque. I rolled my eyes at the cliché. Anyway the people in the place were freaks eyeing me like I was either fresh meat or a weirdo. Either way if some fucker decided to get frisky, he or she would wind up with I cap in their ass.

I made my way over to the bar, the only structure that with proper lighting. However this time I didn’t drink; like any savvy club goer knows- you go to the bar to see and be seen. Within minutes, two big burly fuckers came and escorted me to a VIP area.

Hell.

-o-

The décor of Hell was impressive. The walls were black with a few red fixtures. The lighting came from a dim chandelier in the center of the room and a large fireplace on the far left wall. The music that flowed and filled the room was a classical a complete 180 from the thrasher shit playing downstairs. The dulcet sounds of Barbers Adagio for Strings filling me with a slight trepidation and sadness; I had heard this song before, with Alexia.

Looking at the black leather couches, I found Medina and two whores entangled in a make out fest. In the corner of the room was another girl in a suit, on looking. I was about to clear my throat to gain his attention when his brown eyes snapped on my figure.

“Miss Cassia Versey” his deep accented voice called. My breath was caught in my throat and my mouth went dry as I stared at this god in front of me.

-o-

Alejandro stared at Cassia. They had gotten all of the pleasantries out of the way and now they were talking business.

“What can you tell me about Operation Blackhart?” Cassia asked. Alejandro had already cleared the room of all persons save he and the prodigy. He was thinking of seducing the girl, especially when he saw how she reacted to his presence, but thought better of it.

“Do you believe in the supernatural, Miss Versey?” Alejandro asked, moving over the mini bar in the room to get a glass of wine. Cassia frowned.

“No.”

Alejandro hummed as he took a bottle of vintage, pouring the dark red liquid into a glass. He offered some to Cassia, but she declined.

“Well Miss Versey, you should.”

Alejandro moved over to Cassia, his eyes glowing and an ice seeping into his iris’ turning his once brown eyes into blood red gems. Cassia gasped while Alejandro smirked. “You see, I am a vampire.”

“A WHAT!?!?” Cassia screeched, moving away from the man.

“A vampire” Alejandro laughed, his pearly white fangs glittering in his mouth.

“Vampire” Cass sputtered still in shock and very much afraid. “Yes, yes vampire” Alejandro stated shaking his head and backing away from cassia. “I won’t bite. You do want to know about Operation Blackhart, no?” Cassia shook her head yes.

Alejandro sighed. He ran a hand through his hair before he stopped to stair at the girl in front of him. “Well that is what it is.” Alejandro started. “Operation Blackhart was the U.S. Government’s first introduction to the supernatural. It started in 1944 during World War II. It was during the liberation of France that a small military group raided a Guild territory in Bordeaux. A member was subdued and captured and sent to a lad in the United States for observation and experimentation.”

“For fifty years, they studied him. They tried to breed him but each project failed. Human cells couldn’t fuse directly with the vampire cell without complications; the vampire cells would kill the human cells and then die themselves. So they sat about trying to find an answer. I mean vampires are stronger, faster, and more deadly than human soldiers. They don’t require much food, or housing, they are impervious to disease and the weather. They are the ultimate weapon, and seeing as how they would probably never see or have one again after the Guild member died, they needed to figure out how to infuse his DNA with that of a human to create a child.”

“It was around the late seventies that the scientists were able to create the child using In vitro fertilization and mild cloning. They took cells from the vampire and extracted strands of his DNA which they mixed with the DNA from the sperm a few males and eggs from a few females- three gold medalists from the Olympics and two government officials; this created strong egg and sperm cells that each had fifty percent of the vampires DNA. The two deluded DNA strands met when the egg became fertilized, effectively creating a child with vampire genetics. By 1982 Quest was born and two other children were born.”

Alejandro stopped to look at Cassia; the girl had paled but otherwise looked fine, so he continued. “Quest was the better of the three children, more vampiric than the other two. The other two children were doped up on any of the remaining vampire cells they could find, and sent to be trained while they analyzed Quest some more. By the child’s first birthday, there was a break in- the Guild member was killed and the child was taken. In the aftermath, the government searched every hilltop and valley low for their perfect weapon but they never could find the child. So they turned to trying to make due with their other two children. It wasn’t until the fall of 1989, when the government lucked out and a small Guild coven in Romania, that they were able to continue with operation Blackhart.”

“They weren’t able to get another live subject, but the dead one they had provided enough blood, DNA, and Cells to make three new children and fix the remaining two. This plan was only a marginal success. They only created one child and succeeded in making one of the original children into a vampire. The others died. The new child was not as strong as the first quest was but it was stronger then the other two original children. They decided to wait till before they would try to make the child a full vampire like its predecessor.”

“Within six months of the child’s birth, it and the other child were taken to the Guild. All of the files containing the creation of the children were destroyed. The government lost forty-six years of data in only three hours. They were devastated. They searched even harder than they did the last time but all hope was lost. Operation Blackhart was disbanded, Kurt Castle was out of a job, and the whole project was labeled as an expensive failure.”

“It seemed like all hope was lost. And then four years later when the child was encroaching its fourth year, the government got it and the other child back. The thirteen year old operative remembered his training from his early years, that paired with puberty, distrust of his superiors at the Guild, jealously for both quest and the new child, and the vampire training he received- he managed to lead the government into Guild territory to get him and the child. For his troubles he received a purple heart and later the title of lieutenant in the army. The only problem was that their blood had been poisoned while they were at the Guild. Their DNA was more combative and wouldn’t pair with any human strands without killing it. And they weren’t able to get their hands on any useful Guild member bodies to create any other children.”

“So the government only has two vampire operatives, and the second one is in danger of being Guild property again. If that happens, then all is lost. The child in question has formed a strong link to Quest, one that the government spent a lot of time to subdue. They want you to kill quest to keep this from happening.” Alejandro finished with a sigh, standing up and moving over to his fire place. As he stared into the inferno, Cassia’s face was impassive- that was a lot of information for her to digest in the short amount of time she was given. She only hoped that the wire in her bra got all of that info.

“Well, Mr. Medina, there are still some holes in your story. I assume you are the second child, the one who ratted out the Guild?” Cassia asked, regaining some of her color and composure though her voice was still a bit shaky. “You assume correctly.” Alejandro laughed turning to face Cassia. Disconcerted she continued. “So who is took the children in the first place, where is the new child?”

Alejandro snorted. “All of that information is classified, but if it is any consolation your project was implemented a year after they regained the two children back. You couldn’t possibly be her. Now if you will excuse me I must attend to my guests.” Alejandro said effectively dismissing and shutting up Cassia. The two whor-women and the assistant came back into the room while Cassia excited. Bumping in to Cassia one of the assistant discreetly put a tracking device on Cassia.

Smirking Alejandro turned his attention to his women. “Alright my pretties, lets play.”