Nameless Ghoul

Traitors

Earth grabbed Itzal and dragged him out of the hall whilst screaming orders at the others.

“Papa’s office, now! Swiss, get Secondo to meet us there.”

Papa’s ghouls all followed them, Cirrus and Cumulus holding on to each other. He sent Alpha, Ifrit and Mist to search the grounds to see if they could find any trace of her. And he told the rest of Secondo’s ghouls to keep everyone in the hall and not to let any of the Siblings leave until they’d been questioned and they'd found out what had happened.

Papa was waiting for them, and Terzo had heard the commotion and arrived just after them, too. Itzal didn’t even realise he was being manhandled by Earth until he was unceremoniously dumped into one of the plush armchairs in Papa’s office. Omega was with them too, and he could feel him sending over powerful waves of quintessence mojo. Itzal was thankful as it was keeping the panic at bay, but it was also making his thoughts hazy. His whole body was shaking and his mind was going over what had happened when he left her last night. Why didn’t he make her come with him? This was all his fault.

“Can you feel her Papa? We can’t feel her at all. It’s like she’s just gone. It hurts,” Cumulus whined.

Aether looked bereft, and Dew was pacing up and down, his eyes flashing orange with his anger.

Papa shook his head as he looked at Itzal.

“No, I cannot. I thought I had a flash of something when I woke up during the night, but I can’t be sure.”

Itzal didn’t know what he meant by that. He wracked his brain, trying to think about what could have happened. It was something to do with the punch. Someone must have drugged it, but who?

Secondo arrived then and went to stand with Earth at Papa’s desk. He gave Itzal a kind smile.

“We’ve checked the CCTV footage preliminarily. A Sister and Brother of Sin left with her at around four a.m, through one of the side doors. They must have drugged the punch and waited until everyone had passed out.” Itzal’s mind was reeling. Why would they do that? How did they get past the ghouls who were on guard duty? Secondo smiled sadly at him. “They took some punch to the ghouls who were on watch. They told them they felt sorry for them for missing the party. They passed out as well.”

It didn’t make any sense to him. How could Santos have got to the Siblings to make them do this? Earth spoke up then. He had a tablet and was reading something.

“They are cousins. They arrived here last year from France according to their files.” Secondo cursed. “Santos must have planted them here to spy on us. They must have been feeding him information this whole time.”

Itzal hadn’t recognised any Siblings from Santos’ congregation since he’d been here, but he supposed he didn’t mix with the humans too often anyway, so they could have easily avoided him.

“We need to get her back. We need to go now,” he said as he stood up. “She can’t be there with them. He’s going to hurt her. I can’t let that happen. He will hurt her in the worst ways to get at me.” He heard Cirrus whimper as he spoke, but they needed to know what would happen if they didn’t hurry. “He wants me back. Let me go. He’ll let her go if he gets me back. This is all my fault!”

Itzal could feel himself panicking, but he quashed it down. He needed to think clearly, and he needed to go. He turned to leave and Earth stepped into his path, folding his arms across his chest.

“Do not be reckless, Itzal,” Papa said. “You are bonded to Secondo now. Santos can’t just take you back. He can’t control you anymore.”

Itzal turned back around, facing Papa. He didn’t want to raise his voice to Papa and be disrespectful, but he wasn’t listening.