SHADOWS - Adversary

CHAPTER 3

She'd better not be late.

One of the things Jaquiline Campbell hated most were late-comers. They were just incosiderate and she really prefered not to waste her time with them. However, Jacqueline was finding it rather difficult not to be biased towards the new 'possible recruit', Jacqueline did know their father after all.

He was a good guy, great at his job. When she had heard that had a daughter, she knew she would be the same. But her near-lateness was really starting to piss Jacqueline off. Most people came at least five minutes early, but this one was really cutting it thin.

Two minutes. One minute. Okay now she's late!

Jacqueline tapped her nails impatiently on her mahogany desk and glared at the door. Just as she was about to get up and call the time-waster, a tall, blonde girl burst through the door.

"This place was so fucking hard to find!" She exclaimed.

"You're late," Jacqueline snapped.

The girl turned around to see the clock above the door and said, "by what? A minute?" She laughed nervously.

Jacqueline didn't answer, she just looked at the girl curiously. She was very pretty, with thick dark eyelashes, chocolate-coloured eyes and dark blonde hair that fell in waves and curls down to her middle. However, she also looked nothing like Peter Mayfield.

"Are you Anora Mayfield?" Jacqueline asked skeptically. The girl nodded. "Well, then have a seat," she said, gesturing towards the chair in front of her desk.

Nora sat. She looked nervous, but determined. Good, Jacqueline thought. The cocky ones never lasted long in this line of work, leaving her with nothing but a whole heap of paperwork to do and phone calls to make. She hated paperwork, and she hated the phone calls. It got kinda awkward when you had to call someone's family to tell them that their son, daughter, brother or sister just got their innards torn out and eaten by a demon.

But yet, people kept coming for these Godforsaken interviews.

But of course, without Venators the whole earth would be crawling with demons, ghouls, vampires and more than every other nasty you could think of. So men and women go out and destroy them, before the body count gets too high, keeping the natural order in... well, order.

Venators generally run in families, to keep too many people from knowing about the supernatural creatures that plague their home. If everyone knew... well, it'd just be a mess.

However, if a civilian does find out (assuming they don't eat a bullet), they can also be trained to track, fight and destroy monsters, thus becoming a Venator.

And that is exactly what this young woman wanted to be, just like the rest of her family.

"Can I see your ID?" Jacqueline asked Nora.

She nodded again and pulled out a yellow card and a small leather book. Jacqueline took them and looked. One was an Australian driver's license and the other was a passport. Both had Anora Mayfield written on them, with identical swirly signatures. Both said that she was twenty-one as of yesterday. She's eager, I'll give her that, Jacqueline thought. Twenty-one was the minimum age requirement for the job.

She handed them back. "Everything seems in order." Jacqueline said, picking up a form and handing it to her as well. "You need to fill this in and then I'm going to ask you a few questions. If it goes well, you can come for the physical test this afternoon. You're free to go back to your hotel room or wherever you're staying in the meantime."

"Okay," Nora said, taking the form and the pen Jacqueline handed her.

After she had filled in the form Jacqueline began asking the usual questions. Name, date of birth, relatives, etc, etc. She no longer needed to read them out, after years and years of interviewing recruits they had been seared into her brain. After those questions, Jacqueline moved on the the harder ones. Asking what Nora would do in a certain situation.

Some questions, Nora answered almost effortlessly, others she seemed to think about for a while before. This was good though because sometimes you needed to think things through and others need instantaneous action.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of question asking, they were done. Nora had convinced her. She had the strong mind that a Venator needed. Probably stronger than most. But did she have the physical ability?

"Well, we will be seeing you this afternoon. I'll inform the trainers." Jacqueline told Nora, who couldn't quite conceal her triumphant grin.

Nora got up and left shortly after, saying, "see you this arvo!"

"See you," Jacqueline murmured at the closed door.

Arvo?