| Rendezvous Berlin |
"Isaaaaaac!"
Isaac awoke with a startle and a jerk as the plane touched down at Charles de Gaulle. He felt sweat perspiring at his hairline, the desirous summon still haunting him two sleeps later. He looked over at Colette, magazine still in hand as the plane began to near the terminal.
"Sleep well?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the words on the page.
Isaac didn't answer, leaning forward to collect his things back into his backpack. He shoved his jacket in first, slipping his headphones and bottle of water in after in a not-so-delicate, almost frustrated sort of way.
"I take that as a no," Colette remarked, looking quite relaxed in her seat as the plane came to a halt so the ramp could extend and connect with the plane.
Isaac glared up at her before leaning back into his seat and unbuckling the belt around his waist. She looked at him sharply, challenging him to say whatever was on his mind. The werewolf only glared back at her until the sign above them binged and the seatbelt sign went off. Immediately, clacks all throughout the cabin could be heard and people began to stand, rummaging around and engaging in conversation with other members of their parties.
The blonde French woman next to him stood up and grabbed her leather book-bag from the overhead compartment before stepping back to allow him to get out in front of her. The pair departed as slowly as the rest of the passengers, having to stop and wait now and then for some family or some passenger who was, of course, a beat behind everyone else. Once they found their way off the ramp, through the terminal, and passed customs, Colette finally spoke again. "Are we not talking still?"
"I'm just going through some shit," Isaac said rather gloomily.
"You could have stayed," she offered.
Isaac shook his head.
"You still love him, no?"
"I do. I never stopped. I just…I love my brother, too. I need to find him."
"So cheer up, sad wolf. We find your brother. You go home to your love."
"If it were only that easy," Isaac mumbled, thinking back to the pictures he'd seen around the apartment.
Of course Scott had moved on…and he should have. Isaac had been messed up beyond repair—at least he thought so. Guilt and loss were two very powerful emotions, and when combined, form a very dangerous emotional and psychologically damaging, all-consuming cocktail. It was only until a month ago that something pulled him out of it. Some new piece of information found its way to him that renewed his sense of purpose, that drew him out of his lethargic hole that was even too consuming that made even taking his own life too much of a task: Word had come that Camden was alive after all.
…some few hours later after arriving in Berlin by high speed rail…
"Remind me again why we didn't fly right into Berlin?" Isaac said as he and Colette stepped off the S-Bahn at Hackescher Markt. He looked groggily through the clear glass ceiling, the dark night sky the only thing noticeable what with the obstructing lights.
"Paris is a holy city for hunters," Colette offered. "And I needed this," she said annunciating her intention towards the duffle in her hand by raising it once.
Isaac glanced at the motion, noting the duffle bag he hadn't seen until they were in Charles de Gaulle. He glanced at her, Colette smirking at him before walking down the stairs to the street level. After passing through Brussels and Cologne, their ICE train stopped at Spandau and, for them, finally at Hauptbahnhof; from there, it was a mere few stops to the plaza.
"So, this is where we're meting your contact?" Isaac asked when they stopped in front of a small Italian-style restaurant.
"Mmhmm," she acknowledged, looking up at the 'Osteria Tarantina' sign hanging above the entrance. She crouched down and lifted three things out of the duffle: two wired gloves and what appeared, on its face, to be a 9mm.
"Are those necessary?" Isaac said, looking from her, to the restaurant, and back to her, his eyebrow raised and a slight smirk on his face.
"Are you going to ask questions or do you want to find your brother?" she said pointedly, throwing the duffle back over her shoulder.
"Fair enough," he said, flicking his hand down as his claws popped out. Together they walked shoulder-to-shoulder towards the restaurant, clearly closed at this point in the night. Colette, however, knew the tricks around any locks and forced the door with ease, leaving no trace of any forced entry. They crept through the peachy-orange front of the house, the staff gone by now. Colette led them into the back and towards a particular wooden door that appeared to have not been open for some time. However, with a single tug, it creaked open.
Isaac immediately heard movement and Colette fired a round into the darkness. The seeming-omega was expecting a gunshot to resound throughout the restaurant, and even into the street, yet clearly the mercenary he'd hired had been wielding something far more sophisticated as it shot and electrified dart-like device square into the chest of an oncoming werewolf. They stepped around, entering further into the darkness, Isaac's golden eyes providing little light for his guide, the infrared abilities of them certainly suffice for him.
In but a few steps they were forced to walk down a short wooden steep staircase, leading them underground as the ground declined further and further as it curved. After a few moments, they found a grated doorway which Isaac was forced to remove with his superhuman strength. A few steps up and they found themselves into another hallway, which Colette followed into an abandoned office basement, where they found—through another door—an underground club. Smoke. Music. Dancers. It had the aura of being something found in an eastern European club where nothing good could come out of it except the seven deadly sins.
"Colette," came an accented voice from the side as they stopped a few feet beyond the door. The blond woman turned to see a man she clearly recognized, smiling at his rugged and scarred face.
"Michel," she greeted, pronouncing it like 'Michelle' with a French twist.
"How are you, my dear?" he asked, stepping up to her as they exchanged physical greetings.
"Busy," she answered, mildly jerking her head back towards Isaac.
"I see, I see. Are you looking for Jurgen?"
She nodded, glancing slightly to her right as two very tall and buff men walked beyond the crowd and towards the three at the entrance. "Herren," she acknowledged, her grip tightening on her custom firearm.
"Madame Dráme, Jurgen is expecting you," one of them announced, ready to apprehend her should she make any sudden moves or even make a run for it. However, she only nodded and motioned for Isaac to follow, the werewolf glancing at Michel once before tailing the three bodies through the crowd, his nose picking up on all sort of foreign smells—generally and species-wise. They followed through the mosh to a guarded door, and from there through a second guarded door where they found a man behind a desk with two bodyguards standing at ease behind him.
The dark brunette man behind the desk—who Isaac presumed was this Jurgen—was clean shaven with a comb-over that was obviously covering for some visible balding spots. His left eye was clouded over, and as Isaac focused in closer, he realized the eye was fake. But more stand-out than Jurgen was the bodyguard to the man's right: Isaac could recognize the face of Jackson Whittemore anywhere.