The ride to the airport was uneventful, both of us being too tired to adequately function. One of the many things Ali and I share is a deep disdain of morning people. I wake up like God intended, angry at everything and looking for payback. Coffee helps, a bit, but nothing really settles me down until I’ve gone through the five stages of waking up. Unfortunately my rhythm was thrown off by the mission. I didn’t have time for my usual bargaining, and I was guessing Ali was the same judging by the dark circles under her eyes. “You look like a raccoon.” I like to take my bad moods out on those around me in the morning. Misery loves company and all that.

Ali glared at me from the passenger seat of the nondescript sedan we were loaded into. “And you look like a dickless mouth breather who cant have children. Oh wait, that second part hasn’t happened yet.” She flicked a knife from nowhere and sneered “Hold still.” Threatening castration is an old standby for morning Ali, luckily I’m not scared of her, and even more luckily I brought my briefcase and the sides are reinforced, making it ideal for impeding knife strikes.

I laid the briefcase over my lap “It’s a good thing I have nerves of steel, or that might actually have been scary. Not the knife mind you, I mostly meant the crazy woman with the two black eyes and the rats nest for hair. Now I have two reasons to assume you’re from Raccoon City.” That actually got a smirk. Despite being a vicious shrew in the morning my best friend does have a sense of humor, and it’s pretty similar to mine. Nothing like a good Resident Evil joke to get your day started.

Ali gave an expansive yawn, which I then proceeded to mimic, glaring at her for getting me started “So this flight, are we in first class? Because if I get stuck listening to a crying baby I’m going to spend the whole flight using your testes as stress balls, I can use the screaming to drown out the brat.” I winced at that mental imagery, phantom nausea from extreme testicular trauma flashing through my whole body as my eyes took on a haunted look. There’s creative threats and then there’s just taking things too far. Maybe the zombie comment had been a bad idea.

I shifted my briefcase a little to center it between us and gave her a cautious scowl “We’re taking the private jet Marquesse de Sade, I told you our cover is spoiled rich kids. We get access to the familys accounts for this. But it’s nice to know that I should maintain a safe distance. I wasn’t too worried about you biting me and passing on the infection, but I think crazy bitch might be airborne.” She stuck out her tongue, turning her head to hide the pleased smirk at how pale my face had gone. That bitch.

I turned my own gaze out the car window, watching the trees fly by in a dizzying blur of constantly shifting greenery. If there was one thing I didn’t absolutely despise about the morning it was this. That quiet chilly time at the beginning of the day when it feels like the whole world is holding its breath, like a single endless moment frozen in amber. It’s the only time of the day when feeling like the only person on the planet doesn’t feel so lonely, because you know you aren’t really on your own, everyone else is just playing catch up.

I suppose Ali must have found that single quality as tolerable as I, because the rest of the trip to the private air strip passed in amiable silence. Ali had brushed out her hair while my back was to her, and when I turned around she was as beautiful and together as she always was, her ponytail back in place, and a mischievous sparkle in those blue, blue eyes. The hangar was empty as we hustled onto the equally abandoned plane, dropping down into comfortable padded seats across from each other.

The family’s private jet is a spacious and fully outfitted g7, all the amenities one could ask for. Seeing as how the Sunder clan has been active in one form or another since before the fall of the Roman empire we’ve managed to accrue quite a bit of wealth through the magic of compound interest. The name is originally Sanskrit in origin I’m told. Though the centuries we spent in Europe resulted in the famous pale skin and blue eyes we have now, the pitch black hair that is another hallmark of our family is a holdover from our eastern origins.

Due to the centuries of political power and large reserves of loyal manpower, our finances have grown along with our influence. Dad says that coming to the united states was a calculated move on behalf of the family, because moving here with the first settlers allowed us to manipulate the form the government would take, as well as installing our own people in its early iterations. There are several Sunder senators, and more than one Sunder general. Of course the other twelve clans followed suit, though they came later, with Ali’s clan, the Tierneys being the first after our family to make the journey.

Though our European influence has waned due to the concentration of our forces in the colonies my father considers the move a brilliant decision by our ancestors. All that money comes in handy when you want to travel in style, though we aren’t usually allowed too much access. Dad doesn’t want us to get soft, a concern that curiously doesn’t seem to be an issue on the rare occasions he decides to travel.

I felt my ears pop as we took off, still sitting together in comfortable silence, and I couldn’t help but stare out the window as we took off. Even the popping of my ears under the pressure didn’t diminish the beauty of taking off so early in the morning. The clouds were dyed in a million shades of reds and purples in the dawns early light. I glanced over at Ali “So, the infernal courses aren’t exactly primary class selections. What are you going to take as your cover major? I was thinking about something fun, they actually offer a degree in brewing beer, and somehow I suspect I won’t be the only student in the infernal courses majoring in that one.”

It had been mentioned in passing in the folder that Ali and I had infernal blood in slightly higher concentrations than average, so we had been selected so as to have the best chance of getting in deeper. It isn’t really strange that we’re part infernal, something like ten percent of the population has some degree of infernal or divine blood at this point, though not everyone has the concentrations needed for using the powers inherent to their dna. Of those that do even fewer actually receive training. To be fair this still means theres millions of trained infernals on the planet, especially since their aging seems to slow as they grow in power, not that any of them will give us any sort of information on how that works. Well, guess I’m about to find out first hand.

Ali bit her lip and made a pensive face “Actually making sure to do something easy as my cover major isn’t a bad idea. I like beer but I don’t really give a shit how its made, I’m thinking maybe photography, I’ve always been good with a camera. Or maybe English lit, I’ve always loved classic literature.” I made a face at that, I personally had almost no use for the so called classics. I read only fantasy with the occasional foray into sci-fi, I’d rather lick a cactus than have to sit through pride and prejudice.

Noting my grimace my friend rolled her eyes “How you’ve managed to read thousands of books and somehow avoid anything of substance will forever remain a mystery to me. Your taste in literature is the written equivalent of that teenager whose parents wouldn’t let him eat sugar and after he moves out has dessert for every meal. Don’t you get enough of the macabre and supernatural in your actual life?” Despite enjoying plenty of the books I read, Ali also dabbles in things like history and biographies, she’s been trying to get me to expand my taste in books nearly as long as I’ve been telling her that nonfiction makes me sneeze almost as much as bright sunlight and mint.

The two of us lapsed into silence, staring out the window at the rapidly falling world and the pits of our stomachs dove for cover. As much as I despise popping ears and motion sickness, I’ve always loved the simple act of flight. Knowing that I’m abandoning gravity and all earthly tethers to drift among the clouds has a sort of romantic appeal to me. I can’t help but gaze out in stupefied wonder as we break through the cloud cover, bursting into the higher sky where nothing hides the sun to sail through an endless ocean of white. When I was a kid I used to think about all the stories about heaven and wonder if the clouds were as solid as they looked. I wondered if maybe just out of sight there was a shining city sitting in the sky full of people who were just like me, people who wouldn’t think I was odd or strange.

I shook myself out of my reverie, glancing down at my watch to realize with shock I’d been staring out the window for two hours. I reached down to the compartment on the side of my seat and popped a hidden panel open to snag one of my dads ostensibly secret bottle of fifty year old macallan scotch. I wasn’t supposed to touch it, but I felt that my character wouldn’t have passed on the opportunity and dad was always very strict about maintaining ones role. Among my many classes as a child I’d been given acting lessons and basic espionage training from a young age. The family had lost more than a few hunters to overzealous members of the church or local criminal enterprises over the centuries and had learned fast that invisibility is the best defense, so it was family tradition to train us on a wide variety of topics.

I pulled out the folder again as I poured my scotch, dropping in a scotch ball from the mini fridge/ freezer near my chair before taking a slow sip of the burning amber liquid. It slid down smoothly, while still managing to give that pleasant burn you only get from really good whiskey. I looked over the details we had. Hellstrom appeared to be some kind of infernal training program, not the whole school just a specific department. The knowledge of the program came from one of our best sources, and had apparently been an accident. Having spent literally centuries hunting rogue infernals the family was understandably excited to finally have a chance to learn more. We understood shockingly little about infernal culture and development.

If we could figure out how they cultivate their powers, my father was pretty confident that we could train the subset of the family with the genetic predisposition for the power to be much more effective hunters. We could have our own enchanters, make our own wards, have trusted family members do the tasks we were currently outsourcing to mercenaries. That was why we were imbedded for all four years of the program, dad wanted to make sure we thoroughly documented the entire training process, because if we missed any of their methods it might be the crucial point that prevented our own infernals from reaching the level of skill we needed.