The Blood Dawn

Chapter 7

Nicholas threw on his leather jacket.

Today was his first day being a spy.

He was going to try to get information for the Council, whatever information he thought would be useful.

He walked out of his room and walked into the main room where the rest of the Drainers sat all of them scrolling through their wristwatches.

They had gotten them from the Council, and they were the newest models, so of course everyone was interested in them.

Bethany gasped "we can get voice changers on here!"

Blake rolled his eyes "we were able to get them on the old ones too"

"Is Ember here yet?" asked Nicholas.

Garold looked at him and shoved a croissant in his mouth, "she left a few minutes ago because she thought it would be less suspicious" he said, the croissant muffled his words.

"Oh" Nicholas said as he walked up the stairs "also, Blake I'm taking the motorbike" he called out to them.

"Ok- wait wha-"

Nicholas slammed the door behind him and grabbed the shiny black motorbike from the inside of the garbage can.

He hopped on and revved the engine, sounding a little raspy.

It was the best vehicle they had but also kind of the worst. Ember must have walked or something because the rest of the vehicles were still tucked safely in the huge garbage bin, so he started the bike and rolled forward.

He zoomed out of the alleyway and drove down the dirt path.

It hadn't taken him that long to get to the tent, it was really ragged and tattered and had a board full of missing people's pictures next to the entrance. He dismounted the bike and pushed it to the side of the large tent.

For such a big agency they sure had a tattered tent for a building, maybe it was just one of their locations.

He walked into the tent, he pushed the rag covering the doorway out of the way and walked inside.

"Um, hello?" he called as he walked deeper into the tent, there was a big wooden table that was full of supplies of all sorts; nails, screws, knives, grappling guns, watches, holopads, all sorts of technology and weapons and bags.

He walked into another room "hello?" he called again.

He heard faint whispering and eventually a girl walked into the room.

She looked in her early twenties and had multicolored hair that was chopped to her shoulders, she had a small white strip over the bridge of her nose, probably a broken nose injury, she was about average height and wore a maroon T-shirt with a leather vest and some jeans, she had warm brown eyes and wore a bored look on her face, and he could see a glimpse of a koi fish tattoo on her bicep. And if he were being honest, she looked gorgeous.

"Hi you must be one of the new recruits" she said as she extended her hand "I'm Koi"

Nicholas shook her hand " Nicholas" he said, she had a surprisingly strong grip. She put her hand down and motioned for him to follow.

"Welcome to the Shell Bounty Management, and I assume you should know by now that there are creatures called Shells that are loose all around the city of Skyline" she said. As they walked back into the room with the supplies.

"Oh, yeah I know a lot about them," he said.

She looked back at him for a split second.

"Basically your job is to catch them and deliver them to the Shell Sanctuary safely, also try to avoid the Drainers, they are armed and dangerous."

"Is that how you got that boo-boo on your nose?"

She gave him a grumpy look which only made her look cuter "yeah" she said.

He smirked to himself.

She motioned to the table "this is the supply room, you will be getting a desk in here, we currently have two desks open, you may pick one out later"

Nicholas heard the slight ripple of fabric and Ember walked into the room, her eyes landed on Nicholas then flickered to Koi.

"Um, hello is this the Shell Bounty Management?" she asked nervously.

Koi nodded "yeah, er- I'm Koi, you are?"

"Ember"

Koi nodded "okay, I was just showing our other new recruit around, you may join us if you want"

"Okay" Ember said as she walked to Nicholas.

"Anyway this is the supply room, you can pick your desks out later but when you are assigned a bounty you can come over here and get your supplies before you go" said Koi, she sucked in a breath.

"And over this way is the file room"

I might be able to go there for information

Nicholas stood straighter and followed her into the file room, it had multiple holopads laying around tables. And was a very small room, with pictures and posters hanging up on a bulletin board with a map of the lower

"This is where we keep our files about past Shells that we have taken care of, like their birthdate, parents, home address, etcetera etcetera." she said as she motioned to the holopads, keyboards popped up, made of blue light and the screen projected upwards casting a holographic image of a login page.

"Is it just for Shell information?" asked Ember with innocent curiosity etched into her voice.

Koi gave her an odd look "I mean yeah but it's also just to order more parts or supplies for the agency but that is only for Manny"

When she noticed their slightly confused looks she added "he is my boss- well our boss"

"When can we meet him?" she asked.

"Never" said Koi with a hard expression.

Ember's eyes widened in confusion.

Koi smiled "nah I'm just kidding- you'll meet him here in a few minutes"

She began to walk out of the room and they followed.

Ember walked closer to Nicholas, "I don't really like this girl" she whispered.

"I do" said Nicholas with a smirk. "But what I'm confused about is that the Council said that this was a big agency, this is pretty small to me"

Koi led them through the supply room and into another room that Nicholas hadn't seen before. It was slightly bigger than the other rooms they had seen and had a big wooden table against one of the unstable walls, four wooden stools were against the table and other boxes and random junk were thrown across the room.

In one of the chairs was a skinny middle aged man with reddish brown hair in a low ponytail, he had tan skin and burn marks scattered across his arms, he had amber eyes and thick eyebrows, his clothes were covered in dust and he held a holopad in his hands.

"Hello!, you must be Nicholas and Ember!" he said cheerfully.