The arrangements for who would sit in which of the two cars hadn’t taken all that long - Summer had decided pretty quickly that she wanted to ride in the Audi and so had rushed to sit in there. Once the negotiations were over, Charlie was going to be driving Maggie, Rowan and Kate to their destination. Once everyone had tossed their bags into the trunk, Charlie got into the car himself - Maggie was sitting up front, and Kate and Rowan had decided to sit together in the back. Once he clicked his seatbelt into place, he looked around at everyone.
“Alright, everyone - do you all have your seatbelts secured? Because I’m not going to start driving until I’m fully sure that you have.”“Yes, mom, we are secured.” Kate sarcastically says to Charlie while buckling their seat belt.
Rowan took a back seat with Kate. She had wanted to discuss a few more potion stuff with them over the trip. She still felt a bit bad having Maggie in the front seat. Rowan had only just gotten to know her and she had already picked up that her antisocial tendencies were larger than Rowan’s own. But Charlie was a nice guy, or at least it seemed so anyway, it would be good for her.
Even Rowan herself was wanting to get to know Charlie a bit more as they hadn’t really talked yet. Guess that's what you get when you keep yourself in the lab for the duration of the first days. Rowan felt better having two people she knew around anyway, it always helps her feel better when meeting new people. Maybe Maggie would feel the same, Rowan could hope at least.
“I think we’re fine back here” Rowan said earnestly but broke away to a bit of a chuckle as she heard what Kate said.
Rowan’s inkling was correct, Maggie was quite anxious about sitting in the front seat due to her shyer mannerisms and inclinations. A full eight hours of talking to people… However, she was trying to turn a new leaf after all, and this could be a good thing. Out of all of the new witches at the coven house, Charlie seemed to be one of the most approachable. She had even conversed with him a few times already, which was a start. The girl looked over to the redhead in the driver's seat and slowly offered a smile,
“Ready to go over here.”Charlie smiled back at Maggie before looking around one last time just to make absolutely sure that everyone did indeed have their seatbelts on.
“Alright, perfect. Let’s get ourselves going.” He put the key in the ignition and started the car, pulling out of the Coven house’s parking lot and beginning down the forest road that led away from it. He slowed down significantly for a moment to put their destination into his Sat Nav. He knew the roads around where he lived well enough, but when he got far away he’d definitely need assistance.
After a few more minutes of driving he reached down by his seat and pulled out a fairly large stack of CDs.
“Shall I put some music on? I have a lot of genres here…” He said, glancing down for a moment.
“Queen, The Rolling Stones, Oasis… Taylor Swift? I don’t recall buying that… You guys should have a look through these, I shouldn’t sort through things while I’m driving.” He split the CDs up and handed a few out to each of the car’s other inhabitants.
Kate and the others looked through the CDs collection while Charlie drove, and although Kate knew some singers like Queen and Taylor Swift, they didn't know any songs from Oasis and The Rolling Stones (beside Paint It, Black). While looking at all the CDs, Kate spotted one on the ground, they thought they accidentally drop it out or something, when they put it up however, the song titles looks familiar, like they sounds like they belong in the 2010s, Kate decided to check the front of the CD, to see who the singer is…...It was Justin Bieber….Without saying a word and having a straight face, Kate roll out the window and toss the CD outside.
“How about we listen to some good old Queen?” Kate asked the group while rolling up the window, basically feeling proud that they saved the road trip.
Rowan wasn’t much for music. While she had headphones and used them regularly, they would more be used for ambient noise or very mellow tunes to set a mood. She would leave it to Kate to choose the music and continue to look out the window at the landscapes passing by. Within the day they would be in a whole other world, hunting creatures of the night.
Sometime a bit later in the drive, Rowan tosses her note book over onto Kate’s lap.
“It wasn’t very fair of me to look at your recipes before I trusted you with those components. You can have a look at mine, who knows you might actually learn something while you are at it.” Rowan spoke the last part with her very recognizable competitive tone. The whole offer had a very tongue and cheek vibe to it, although she did mean the first part earnestly.
If opened, the notebook looks incredibly messy. There are the traces of some neat notes at the start. But this has been vandalised with the chicken scratch of repetition. Many notes are scratched out only to have another value presented instead. It takes roughly 5 pages in her notebook for a single potion recipe, however this includes time taken for each stage and recipe portions to the nearest 10mg. Overall, this is the work of someone who spends far too much time perfecting even the most mundane of potions. The notebook is relatively new only containing, Darkvision (to help see in the dark), Vitalise (to make someone feel as if they are adequately fed and had plenty of sleep), Pridesbane (a poison that overcharges one's ability to be afraid), and Rowan’s potion number 9 whose purpose is unable to be determined and is certainly not well known like the other 3.
Kate jumedp a little when Rowan tosses her note book onto their lap, they really don't mind whoever look at their potion journal, just as long as they are not stupid kids or crazy witches who will used the jornal for evil.
“Oh please, I may learn things from you but you can learn a thing or two from me” Kate says to Rowan with a smirk.
Meanwhile, Charlie was in the midst of a long tirade of a tangent about one of his favourite subjects which he was spewing out to Maggie, who had unfortunately gotten him started on the topic.
“And so we’re sitting fairly comfortably in the second tier, but that’s obviously a precarious position, it’s a competitive league, anything can change. So we need investment to sign some new players, but the owners seemingly refuse to invest! It’s a major problem in the sport, why become the owner of a club if you’re not going to invest, it’s like-” He stopped suddenly as he became more aware of himself.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m rambling on, this must be really dull for you.” He quickly thought of a new topic to keep the conversation moving along.
“Have you ever been to North Carolina before? I have, once-” He almost went off on a long tangent again, but managed to stop himself so Maggie could get an answer in. He did genuinely want to hear her talk, but he was like a fountain of words, once he started going he found it hard to stop himself.
The blonde tried her best to keep up with Charlie’s long winded monologue. Though she wasn’t passionate about sports in the slightest, the redhead was, so she attempted to pay attention to the intricacies that he discussed. Maggie was shocked though when he stopped himself and apologized. Most people knew that because the girl was quiet, she was a great listener, which meant they often did not censor themselves.
“No, it’s okay!” She assured him truthfully. Maybe it was something about his accent, but the girl didn’t mind listening to him talk about the things he was passionate about.
“But, no, I haven’t really been before. We did drive through once on a road trip but I don’t count that.” Maggie replied,
“I also wouldn’t count this as ‘visiting’ per say. I feel like this is more of a business trip than anything…” The blonde smirked and looked back over at Charlie.
“You were starting to say that you had been to North Carolina before?” Charlie chuckled.
“That’s true, I suppose we’re not going to get much time to visit any sights, or go on a hike in the forest. We’ll be too busy for that.” He mused.
“But, yes, I have visited North Carolina once. My mum took me on a trip down here to visit a friend of hers. She had a very large house that had a garden with a creek running through it. There was a tree by the creek that was curved perfectly to be sat on.” He said, clearly remembering it vividly, turning to Maggie for a moment and making an appeal to her main interest.
“It was a perfect place to sit and peacefully read a book.. I’m sure you have a lot of places like that.”As the redhead described the little oasis in his family friend's backyard, Maggie could just imagine curling up against the trunk of that tree contently and flipping through the pages of a novel, the creek running quietly in the background.
“That sounds wonderful.” The blonde smiled at Charlie as they made eye contact.
“My favorite place to read is the window seat in my bedroom- when it’s nice out I like to open the windows and sit there for hours… but that place sounds so much better.” Her eyes glazed over slightly as she let her thoughts wander, hoping that the group would return from this expedition with the opportunity to enjoy such a place and quiet mundane things.
“Such simplicities that we don’t have the time for these days unfortunately.” Maggie commented dully, referring to the death wish of a mission they were sent on.
“It was pretty wonderful.” Charlie agreed, listening to Maggie describing the cosy reading area that she had located in her bedroom.
“That window seat sounds very comfortable too.” He noted, before considering her concerns about a lack of time to enjoy simple things.
“Well, we hopefully won’t be down here for very long, and they can’t send us on that many missions, surely, considering we’re still largely inexperienced. We’ll still presumably have a lot of the summer left to enjoy the coven house.” He smiled, trying to keep Maggie’s mood high.
“When we’re finished in North Carolina, I bet we could find a perfect reading spot in the area surrounding the coven house. It is really beautiful around there, I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring, I get slightly bored if I’m cooped up inside a house for an extended period of time.”The blonde girl’s lips curved into a cautious smile. Like Charlie, she also hoped that their time in Gary was short, sweet, and to the point, but it was best not to be too optimistic. After all, this could all end up in flames… literally. Didn’t she read somewhere that you could kill vampires with fire? Shaking off the last of the anxious thoughts that had surfaced, she focused on the good idea that the redhead brought up.
“I think we could too. That sounds really nice.” Maggie replied excitedly. The promise of the two of them finding a quiet spot to delve into a paperback away from the busyness of the coven house was the perfect thing for the girl to look forward to when they eventually completed their mission.
A few hours into the drive Rowan decided to actually speak up about her train of thought. Before it had been the occasional talk about potions with Kate. Even some stuff outside of the coven like what school was like. But it always ended a bit too quickly because of the subject weighing on Rowan’s mind.
“Sorry I uh, don’t mean to bring the mood down or anything. But has anyone given a good deal of thought to all this? What interest do vampires have with some nowhere town like Gary Carolina?”Maggie had chatted with Charlie for the first part of the ride, simple topics like favorite foods and things (which caused the redhead to go on a tangent about Watford FC for a solid 20 minutes). But the blonde didn’t mind, she was just happy that there were no awkward silences. For the last 30 minutes or so, she had been scrolling through her phone, seeing what her mundane high school friends were up to on their Summer vacations. She could only imagine what the conversation would be like when they got back to campus come fall… it would start with her friends talking about their beach trips and abroad vacations, and then Maggie would have to create some elaborate tale to disguise the fact that she hunted vampires with her Coven. Normal stuff.
Speaking of, Rowan mentioned the fanged beasts- the first person to do so the entire drive. The blonde had guessed everyone was a bit anxious about it and so she wasn’t surprised they hadn’t discussed it up until now. She turned around in her chair to face the backseat.
“Well,” Maggie started, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear as she spoke.
“Smaller town means lesser resources for humans to defend themselves with. It’s easier to take over a place when there aren’t as many people to stop them. Plus, if it’s a ‘nowhere’ town, people are less likely to hear about it.”During the car ride, Kate and Rowan have been talking about potions, it nice to catch up about what the potion duo have been making, they told her about Anxietyo-Begoneo and Marionette Hours, they also talk about getting some ingredients while they are at Gary Carolina, Kate have been dying to make a new potion.
When Rowan mentioned why the vampires go to small towns, Kate thinks about the question they ask to the group, why the coven is sending them, unprepared and inexperienced kids, to hunt and probably going to be killed by vampires? Nobody in the group didn’t answer the question, which is understandable, everyone is to focus on the mission but still.
“Really? I thought it was because small towns are like snacks, they are the chips and cookies to the vampires, while cities like New York and San Francisco is a big feast, there is a lot of food on the table but it takes awhile to finish." Kate says to Maggie and they are not joking, they thought the vampires is going to eat the entire town.
Charlie shook his head.
“No, I’m fairly sure Maggie is right. It’s far easier to hide away in a small town, it’s surrounded by forested areas and there’s less of a police presence. Perhaps the group of vampires that are in this town are injured or otherwise temporarily weakened… It wouldn’t be smart for them to continue on in a large city where there’s such a heightened risk of them being captured or further injured.” Charlie paused for a moment, ruminating the question he was about to ask.
“Have any of you ever actually fought with a vampire before? Or even seen one?” He looked ahead into the road.
“It’s a bit unnerving, I suppose…”“I’ve done a lot of reading about them, but I’ve never actually seen one or fought one…” Maggie replied, recalling the stack of books she went through last Summer after hearing about Vampires in a local town. Luckily, they were stopped before anything could truly go awry, but still- scary stuff.
“They really are sending us in blind, aren’t they?"Rowan released her gaze from the window and sat back into her seat to properly join the conversation she started.
“Taking over a town like Gary then. It shouldn’t take much for them to do it. Who’s to say they haven’t done it yet? I think we should be careful when we are going to our hotel.”Rowan noticed the palpable drop in tone with the conversation she brought up. It was going so well before with her talking to Kate, Maggie talking with Charlie, and Bohemian Rhapsody playing in the background. Then she had to pipe up with the dour reality of what they were getting into. Maybe the other three needed that emotional escape. Her posture which before held one of composure dropped into insecurity.
“I, uh, I’m sorry… I really want to enjoy all this. But it's only a few hours before we are in it. If we don’t come into this prepared, we…” Rowan really didn’t want to think about what failure would mean, but it kept creeping into her mind.
“Well you know.”Maggie was the first to jump in and reassure the dark haired witch.
“No, it’s okay, don’t be sorry.” She replied, giving Rowan a nod.
“You’re totally right- we’re only a few hours away and we need to know what we’re getting ourselves into.” The blonde looked over to Charlie, who’s eyes were focused on the road, and hoped he’d be able to provide some more context to the situation.
“Charlie, have you ever encountered any Vampires before?”Kate was about to ask their question again but then Rowan began to talk, saying sorry for bringing up the conversation. Kate rarely sees Rowan say sorry before, the two usually talk to each other with smart remarks but they don’t talk in a deep moment. Kate placed her hand on Rowan's shoulder
“Yeah, don’t be sorry. Sure, the coven is sending us to our doom but guess what? Our group is stronger and smarter than everyone else. We got three badass potioneers, two witches that know the dark arts, two boys can make great charms, a lightning witch, hell, even Summer is good at illusion magic...Um, don’t tell her I say that.” Even in their pep talk, they always find a way to their jokes in there
“My point is, our skills and our magic is awesome and it can kick some vampire ass.” Kate said proudly to everyone in the car, while hoping it made the mood light up a little.
When Charlie asks everyone if they see a vampire, Kate shakes their head
“No, I do know a girl from my middle school who was obsessed with vampires from twilight….Don’t know where she is now” Kate says, they do think about that girl sometimes.
Charlie chuckled at Kate’s pep talk, before taking a quick sip of some water from a bottle stowed away in the car door. He took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at Maggie before he answered her question.
“Well, I haven’t seen one, but I’ve had what you could call an encounter…” He paused before continuing.
“Back at my previous coven, I was exploring the attic of the house, when I heard some commotion from downstairs… Yelling, things breaking, that sort of thing. It went on for about half an hour. Eventually someone came and got me. I found out that a group of vampires had attempted to break into the house… Luckily nobody was injured. It’s just a bit frightening to think about…” He finished.
Rowan was reassured by Maggie and Kate that bringing this all up was fine, it made her feel better.
“Thanks… Still I don’t think it's a good idea to go into the hotel without our wits about us. We should group with the other car and scout it out together. If they’ve already taken over the town, I imagine that would be the first place they would think to trap. If we can get that place safe I think I can start doing a few rituals, I brought gear for it. Though I haven’t even seen a vampire outside of books so I am going in very blind here.”Maggie felt badly that Charlie had experienced such a terrible thing at his previous coven but she was thankful that he had been safely tucked away in the attic. The blonde couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like, but she knew everyone would experience a vampire encounter by the end of this mission.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.” She looked back over at the redhead, offering him a sympathetic glance.
“You’re right though, Rowan- we have to assume that every part of the town has already been compromised. And we can’t trust anyone.” Charlie nodded.
“That’s very true. I suppose that actually makes our task easier than the other group’s… They have to search a whole city for whoever the vampires are, whereas we just have to search through a small town of probably no more than a thousand people. There’s only so many places they can hide there… Whereas in Baltimore, it’s virtually endless. I just wish the file that we were handed gave us a bit more information. But I suppose the whole point of this task is to test us, they could have sent out far more experienced witches to do the job.” “Thank you! Finally, someone said it!” Kate says out loud
“I mean, our parents and other witches from the coven have dealt with this before, so how come they didn’t send them?” After saying that, Kate just realized they just exploded out of nowhere. They sigh
“sorry, I didn’t mean to explode like that. It's just that question has been bothering the hell of me all morning, I just want to say something” Kate says to the group.
Rowan spoke up to respond to Kate.
“It’s a test. Sure they could send in someone who is experienced, but someday we are going to need to be those experienced ones. Though I wish they would give us some time before throwing us in the deep end like this.” Rowan frowned and looked downward as she remembered the consequences of failure. But tried to shake it out of her mind.
“If we give this all we’ve got, nothing can go wrong.” Did she even believe what she was saying? Rowan is someone who kept her faith in the coven from day one, but along with testing their abilities it also appeared to be testing that faith. Surely the coven wouldn’t send us out unless they knew we could handle it, right?
The car was more or less quiet after that, until they passed the sign ‘Gary: 5 miles ahead’. The car arrived at night but even considering the time of day, the town seemed lifeless and empty. At least that's how it looked to Rowan anyway. It was a small town so it didn’t take long to find the hotel after Rowan gave a quick check on google maps. As agreed earlier, the group did not enter the hotel. Instead they would wait for the other car to arrive. Who knows what dangers lie in wait in this town.
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