5.0: A Mysterious Manor For Girls

CARDEN

Being summoned to Zayne’s office is a mixture of many things. Anticipation is the most prominent… or at least it was. Lately it’s been predictable and boring. I’m expecting a weekly update or news on an attack, but with only myself, Oliver and Greggory present, I know exactly what the subject is about.

Why are we here again? Why is he here again? The girl, now just over nineteen slipped from our grasp, my grasp years ago. I never gave up, but no matter how long or how hard I tried to track her down, it was like trying to catch a ghost.

Their disappearance hasn’t made a dent in the demon activity. Now it’s just stupid people doing evil things without having to be cohorced by a woman and her daughter.

Today though, Greggory oversteps his boundaries once again. I don’t why, but it bothers me. It shouldn’t, she’s a monster, but it feels as if she's my responsibility. Maybe I’ve been reading Reedus’s journals too much.

Greggory’s words echo throughout the room, cutting my thoughts short, “I found her mother.” He’s ready for praise, a pat on the back for a job well done. “She’s hiding out in a trailer park about five hours from here.”

Zayne’s smile widens at the pathetic excuse for a soldier. Greggory takes the praise with a head held high as Zayne claps loudly for him. The first to turn a cold case hot.

“Just waiting on the okay to interrogate.” He quickly turns into a little child as he looks to Zayne, bouncing on the balls of his feet awaiting the appraising words.

They don’t come, because this isn’t his mission. He never got the okay to be included in it either. So the anger that rushes through me at his words of investigating my mission has my fingers ache with the need to punch something.

“We can be ready to go,” I shout into the room. “I’m more experienced in dealing with psychotic threats.”

Greggory’s cold eyes throw daggers at me, his sputtering is beyond annoying. Spit it out, I want to yell at him. “I found her. I think I should be the one to-”

Oliver flashes his sly smile full of false charisma between Zayne and Greggory. His words are meant to sucker punch Greggory in the gut as he speaks directly to Zayne. “No offense, but haven’t we gone over this already? We’re all aware that Carden has been placed in charge of the girl.”

“It shouldn’t matter who takes her. She’s the enemy. And I’m perfectly capable of dealing with a conwoman and her monster daughter.” Greggory hisses. He senses the conversation getting away from him. “She summons demons. Sees your worst fear with a single touch. Responsible for handfuls of murders. She should be put down, not paraded around.”

His words suck all the air out of the room. He has no idea who he’s talking about. He has no idea that he’s bashing the daughter of a fallen soldier. Enemy or not.

“She’s beneficial and if you were involved in this mission you would know that.” I throw his low level position in his face. He’s just a body, just a number of the masses. He patrols, nothing more. One of many humans in our ranks that are worthless.

He doesn’t know that I’ve spent every minute of my days looking for her. Not her mother. But her.

“Greggory, I appreciate your dedication in tracking the girl down,” Greggory goes as far as to groan in frustration at the words that are coming, “but Carden and Oliver are privy to delicate information about her.”

The disappointment on his face is all the satisfaction I need to face the wickedness that is her mother. “Where is she? Address.” I say flatly into the room.

Regrettably, he rattles off the location. I debate if he’s telling us the truth, but he’d be an idiot to lie. The repercussions would be severe. Does that mean that he’ll give up? Not at all.

I don’t know what Zayne sees in him. Sure he’s eager to learn, a puppy dog that will do any mission or chore given to him, but his ‘I’m better than you’ mentality gets old fast. If only he knew who he was really talking to.

Zayne quickly dismisses us. Oliver and I make our departure from the complex. It’s the longest five hour drive I’ve had to endure. The anticipation. The frustration. I’m overwhelmed and it jitters my hands. Once the trailer park comes into view my fingers involuntarily clench the steering wheel.

Am I nervous of what we might find out?

The small community is a mess. Garbage litters the yards, addicts scamper to the safety of their shacks at the sight of an unfamiliar car. “What number did he say?”

“Forty seven thiry two.”

Parking several trailers down, we walk to her trailer. If she is there, she’s not getting away. But as we get closer the air around us changes. My hand whips out into Oliver’s chest, his feet skitter to a stop. Someone’s already here.

Looking foolish, we stick to the shabby bushes, peering into the rundown box. How can she even live in a place like this?

The hitch of voices has us all silent. Furniture and who knows what else crashes to the floor. We don’t need to get closer, because the individuals inside speak loud and clear. It travels easily through the thin walls. And neither of the voices belong to the girl.

“Where is she, Mariam?”

“As if I would tell you.”

The man laughs at her foolish words. It doesn’t take a genius to know who they’re talking about. I wedge between some garbage cans to get a better look.

I catch a glimpse of the man, of the demon that shouts at the pathetic woman. “Don’t be foolish. She belongs with me, you know that. Where. Is. She?”

There’s this uneasy feeling in my gut. She belongs with him? But he can’t have her. Not because I want her...well, I do...want her, but only to use her against him and others of his kind. I want to take her away from him to gain the upper hand. I won’t lose to a demon.

And apparently her mother won’t either. “I won’t let you have her.” Mariam shouts. A glass is smashed against the wall. This is why I didn’t go looking for her mother. She’s volatile and not very giving with information.

“It’s funny how you think you can say no to him. You’re dancing with the devil and everyone knows not to fuck with the devil, Mariam.” His words travel through the small trailer. “I will find her and when I do, we’ll come visit, because I know she’ll enjoy killing you. The mother that lied to her, the mother that didn’t love her.” There’s a pause, he voice lowers, “I love her. She’ll see that.”

His confession has me going cold. It sits in the pit of my stomach growing more and more sour with each second. He loves her? How? Why? But why should I care?

“Go to Hell, Draven.” She hisses in his face.

Draven? I’ve heard that name before. On the lips of people in West River. From the mouth of people on Parker St. I hadn’t realized that they were one of the same. The demon that has been responsible for several attacks within these past years is also desperately searching for the nightmare girl.

I can’t help the tremor that jolts through my body as the front door slams open. Draven exits first with two demons close behind him. Everything in me wants to get in the car and follow him. Torture him for information. Information about her. He found her mother…he found her mother when Greggory was able to find her mother.

It doesn’t feel right. That conclusion. Do we have a rat in our mix or is Greggory that incompetent in covering his tracks? Where did he even find out where her mother was in the first place? Public records? Eye witnesses? This is why a recruit can’t be responsible for something so important.

A throat clears behind me. “Ready?” Oliver asks oblivious to my self made connection between Greggory and Draven.

Climbing our way out of the bushes and garbage cans, we walk up to the front door. My fists lands with heavy thuds. The knocks almost vibrate the flimsy door.

“I said go back to Hell,” the woman shouts through the door. When I continue banging she’s left with no choice but to answer it. Her mouth is open ready to give me a few choice words, but the words die out as her eyes meet mine. “So many visitors today. Let me guess, The Order wants the nightmare girl.”

“We’re better than demons.” Oliver says as he flashes her his hand with The Order emblem tattooed on it.

“Barely,” she huffs before turning her back and walks deeper into the trailer, putting much space between us. “You guardians can be just as cruel.”

I step forward, Oliver following and shutting the door behind him. “Do you believe that? I mean, your husband was a soldier. Reedus was well respected and far from cruel.” I look her over. Snear to her thin lips, arms defiantly crossed, “can’t say that his judgment wasn’t a little…off kilter at times.”

“As you can see, I don’t have her,” she shouts, “search the place if you like. I got rid of her a long time ago.” Her words are cold and emotionless.

“Where? Left her out on the streets? Sold her to some asshole? You didn’t leave her for dead because you would flaunt her body around so you wouldn’t have unwanted visitors asking about her. So where is she?” That vile smile creeps back up onto her face. She can be bribed. “What do you want? Huh. You obviously don’t care about her so what do you care about? The Order can be very giving when deserved.”

She freely laughs in my face, “Why do you want her? To use her? Good luck with that. She’s just as stubborn as her…”

“Her father?” Oliver interjects.

“You have no idea what you’re asking for.” She mutters.

My patience is thinning. “Reedus would’ve-”

“Reedus. You have no idea of what Reedus would’ve wanted.” She spits out before stomping off. Oliver and I watch her rummage through cabinets and drawers searching for something. Once she finds it my lungs painfully tighten.

She throws a journal at me. I barely catch it from being so shocked at seeing another one. One we didn’t even know existed. “Where did you get this?” It’s identical to the leather bound books that are back at the complex.

“He left it for her, but I…” she struggles with her words, her feelings, “he loved her more than he loved me. He loved her as if she was his own and I hate her for it.”

Oliver and I both sputter the same word, “what?”

She shakes her head realizing that she slipped and said something she wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t that she admitted to torturing the girl as some sick payback for Reedus choosing her over herself. It was the admission that Reedus loved her as ‘if’ she was his.

“Read it,” is all she says. “Everything you need to know is in there. Including where she is. You want that hellion, go get her, but I’m warning you, she’s a monster.”

Oliver takes a few steps forward, coming nearly face to face with her, “maybe because you turned her into one.”

“Get the hell out of my house and don’t come back. She has baggage that kills. I know you saw him,” Draven, “some of you might get hurt,” she grabs a liquor bottle that’s on the kitchen counter, “are you ready for that, to possibly lose some of your own for her?” Once the cap is twisted free she takes a chug right out of the bottle.

We leave her to her booze and thoughts. Oliver drives back and I start reading. I finish it before we get back. It leaves me dazed and confused. Horrified and frantic. “We have a problem,” I mutter into the car as I stare at a picture of her. A more recent picture than the one of the thirteen fourteen year old we found in the house.

Oliver urges me to continue as I stumble around the right words. He nearly shouts for me to spit it out. I cut right to the point. “Reedus isn’t her father.” Oliver’s request of ‘who’ goes unheard, lost to the static in my head. “Drystan.” The demon king.

The pages say it all. Reedus believed that she was his until he heard of a girl on demon lips during partols. They called her the daughter of blood and nightmares, blessed with gifts from Drystan himself.

He was a guardian and foolish to believe that he could have a child in the first place. After confronting Mariam he found out what she’d done. But no amount of truth could stop him from turning his back on her. He was already protective of the girl that he raised, had witnessed her do extraordinary things that he thought was to help people grow when in actuality it was to bring torment.

An entry at the near the end speaks of saving her the only way he knew how. He went after the source. He went after Drystan. He died trying to protect her from the truth her mother burdened her with. The truth I’m not even sure she knows.

Oliver snatches the photo out of my hand, “So where is she?” he asks oblivious to my racing thoughts.

“Mysteria Manor.” There’s a silence between us as we both rack our minds for anything we’ve heard, heard in passing about a place called Mysteria. Nothing. We’re still at square one, but now we’re even more desperate.

We need to find her to stop an earth shattering family reunion from happening.