The Daughters of Tomorrow

Chapter Two

Edinburgh

The South Bridge Vaults

It was dark and damp throughout the chambers today, but then again it always was. It had been three days since Hadeon had felt the surge of energy that came from the sisters reunion, and he knew patience was the best way to get what he wanted.

He was already starting to feel stronger, because even though they were far enough away that he couldn’t drain any of their power yet the surge of energy that came from their first meeting had given him enough strength to last him for several days and he knew that once they figured out there was a third sister, the energy surge that came from their meeting with her would be even greater. He would survive off the next one until they came for him, and once they did he would be ready for them. He had been waiting for this for 15 long years, and nothing would stop him this time.

He heard small steps behind him and he knew the girl was awake, he was in a good mood today so he had decided he would take her outside.

“Good Morning sir,” she said quietly, always scared of how he would respond

“Cordelia, put your nice clothes on. I’m taking you out for breakfast.”

“Yes, master.” Said the girl, before she turned away and walked back to her belongings.

Hadeon was a demon in the shape of a huge beast, he had black fur, red eyes and two small horns atop his head. But it only took him a small amount of power to shapeshift, and so he would disguise himself as a human whenever he had to go out for supplies. He would often take people if no one else was around and he’d feed off their lifeforce, sucking it from their lips, which allowed him to stay alive for all of this time. Then he would usually pat them down and steal the cash from their wallets or purses and use it to buy food for the girl, and sometimes clothes when she had gone through growth spurts in the past. He would also take the money from them and put it away, saving up just in case she ever needed something else. He had originally taken her to kill her. He had planned on sucking the power from her and then once the magic was his he would suck her lifeforce from her and leave her dead. But once he discovered that she had no magic away from her home, he had decided to keep her for a few days while he worked on a new plan. And then she became apart of his plan, so he kept her as a hostage and over the years he had come to care about her in his own way. As much as he could care for any other being anyway, which was not a lot compared to the way other beings cared, but it was a lot to him.

She was only 10 when he had taken her and she remembered everything. When she was “disobedient”, as Hadeon put it, he would whip her. She had many scars up her back and she learned quickly how he had wanted her to behave. She had two blankets, one that she put on the cement floor to lay on top of and the other to cover her. She also had one singular pillow, and she couldn’t remember what it was like to actually have a bed, although she often remembered what her old room had looked like and would daydream about being back there.

Her clothes were folded in a small pile at the end of her makeshift bed, she didn’t have many. Two pairs of pajamas, one pair of clothes that she wore everyday and one pair of nice clothes that she wore when Hadeon would take her out. Once a week they would walk to the laundromat and wash her belongings, she looked forward to that trip every week because if she had been well behaved, and if Hadeon was in a good enough mood, he would treat her to a chocolate bar from a small store on their way back to the Vaults.

Cordelia dressed quickly and ran a small, old comb through her hair, before putting on her only pair of shoes. Then she walked back over to Hadeon who was already in his human form.

“Are you ready, pet?” He asked

“Yes, sir”

New York

“Mountain. The answer is Mountain! But what does that have to do with anything? I feel like this whole thing is one big joke.” Evelyn had figured out what the answer to the riddle was almost immediately, and she had waited until the next morning to call Henrietta and tell her about it.

“Well, maybe he lives on a Mountain..”

“Do you know how many Mountains there are in the world? Because I’d be willing to bet that we wouldn’t be able to find them all.” Evelyn retorted.

“Okay, okay. You said there was numbers at the top of the screen right?”

“Yes, and down the bottom. They both have a letter at the end too and a decimal point after the first two numbers.”

“They sound like coordinates!! Okay let me grab a pen, we might be onto something!” Henrietta exclaimed.

“Are you sure? How do we know that the coordinates won’t lead us to some creepy fan club, or a crazy guy who researched The Keeper and is pretending to be him just to mess with people?”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?” Henrietta giggled

“No, Hen. I don’t. I think this whole situation is crazy and if I hadn’t had some weird vision of some scary man - which by the way didn’t look exactly how a man should look - I wouldn’t be giving this web page or The Keeper a second of my time.”

“Okay, well we’ve come this far. Just relax, we might be onto something. Now tell me the coordinates.”

“Okay, the one at the top of the page says ‘37.6826° N’ and the one at the bottom is ‘90.5990°W’, how are you going to tell what they mean?” Evelyn asked.

“Duh, I’m going to google it.” Henrietta answered and they both laughed.

“What colour did you say the page was again?” She asked.

“Brown” said Evie.

“Huh, that’s funny. The coordinates are for Brown Mountain in Missouri.”

“Okay, well what do we do now?”

“I’m not sure, honestly I’m not prepared to drop everything and go to Missouri just because some random webpage is hinting that The Keeper is there” Henrietta said.

“No you’re right. But that’s the only lead we have.”

There was a moment of silence as the girls pondered the situation.

“Have you had any more headaches?” Asked Evie.

“No actually, the last one I had was at work when we spoke about meeting up.”

“Me too, okay so how about we just forget about all this for now and go about our normal lives and if anything else happens then we use the coordinates?”

“I think that’s a good idea, you’ll text if anything happens?”

“Of course I will. And you too, okay?”

“I will Evie. Talk soon”

Henrietta hung up the phone, she was walking to work when Evie had called her and still had two blocks before she would arrive.

She was early, so she decided she would grab a coffee from the Starbucks on the corner. She didn’t know how she would get through the day while she was so preoccupied by everything her and Evelyn had spoken about. But she knew she had to.

After her call with Henrietta had ended, Evelyn decided she would have some breakfast before calling Carly and asking if she needed any help today. It was Evelyn’s day off but after hearing that Abby had been let go, she didn’t want to leave everything up to Carly. Evelyn headed straight for the fridge to find something to eat, and as she reached for the door she noticed a yellow post it note stuck to it.

I love you. See you at 2

Mark was the sweetest person she had ever met. She continued to open the fridge and get the ingredients she had wanted to use for breakfast. Eggs, bacon, milk, cheese.. She placed the food on the bench and turned on the stovetop, she had decided to make an omelette.

Some time later after she had cooked, eaten and cleaned the kitchen, she sat on the couch and reached for her phone to dial Carlys number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I was wondering if you needed any help at work today?”

“Evie, it’s your first day off in two weeks. Enjoy it.”

“Yes I know, but I don’t want you picking up Abbys slack all by yourself. It’s too much.”

“Don’t worry about me, I rescheduled most of her clients and don’t have a lot on my plate today at all. So go, have a good day.” Carly said firmly.

“Okay, well call me if you need anything. Love you”

“Love you too.”

Evelyn hung up the phone and threw it onto the couch cushion beside her, she had no clue what she was going to do today. She had 4 hours until Mark would be home from work, and she wasn’t the type of person who enjoyed doing nothing. After some thinking she decided she would go and get some groceries so that she could cook Mark a nice dinner, a Lamb roast with baked vegetables and a homemade apple pie for dessert. Yes, that would keep her busy. She wrote a small shopping list, put on her shoes and grabbed her coat and bag before heading out the door.

Edinburgh

Cordelia was laying on her makeshift bed staring at the singular candle she had lit, she was sad to be home. She liked being outside, there was so much more to do and things to look at, here she had nothing to do except sit in the dark and watch the candle flicker.

Hadeon had let her choose where they would go for breakfast and so she chose a small cafe and had asked him for eggs Benedict, and he obliged. He had ordered himself some scrambled eggs on toast so as to look normal, even though he wouldn’t actually eat it. Instead he would ask for a takeaway container and that would be Cordelias dinner for that evening. After breakfast they had gone for a walk around town, they stopped to pick up some water to take back to the vaults so that Cordelia could stay hydrated and then they headed back much sooner than she would of liked to.

Hadeon had taken her home and then gone immediately back out so he could feed, and gather strength and so she was waiting for him. At least when he was there she had someone to talk to, and even when they weren’t talking she didn’t feel so alone. As if he knew she was thinking about him she heard him come back and start toward her.

“I have something for you pet.” He said as he approached her.

He pulled a book out from the shadows and handed it to her. The title read “little women” and there was a picture of 4 girls in long dresses on the cover.

“Thank you, sir.” She said while she was admiring the picture.

“Hmm.” He grunted at her and then walked away to sit in his chair.

He liked to rest after he fed, and so she would leave him alone for a while.

Cordelia wrapped herself in one of her blankets and sat closer to her candle so that she could see the writing in the book, she loved to read. She would often ask Hadeon if they could stop at the book store on their way to the laundromat every week, and most of the time he said no, but if she was lucky he would allow it. He knew that it gave her something to do and that in turn would give him some peace.

Before long she could hear Hadeon snoring, and so she would read as much as she could before he woke and gave her dinner.

New York

Henrietta was exhausted, she had skipped lunch today and thrown herself into her work. Her eyes were so tired from reading and she was absolutely starving. After work she had finally gone shopping and had enough groceries to last her a week and she was quite proud of herself. Her first grocery shop in New York. After she packed her groceries away she called her mother and told her all about her new job, and her new friend, before telling her exactly how much she missed her.

“Sweetheart, I miss you too. More than you know.” Said Carol. “I’m so glad that you’re settling in and have made a friend, I’m so very proud of you and so is your father.”

“Thank you, mum. I’ll call again tomorrow, I’m so sorry I woke you up. I love you.”

“We love you, honey”

Henrietta hung up the phone and made her way to the bathroom, she would shower and then have dinner and then have an early night.

She thought maybe she should call Evelyn, but she decided she would save it for tomorrow.

“Wow! I’m absolutely stuffed. This was such a beautiful meal, Evie.” Mark exclaimed.

He reached out and put her face in his hands before pulling her in for a kiss.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, you’re always cooking for me so I decided it was my turn.” She answered.

“You are amazing. Why don’t I take care of the clean up since you did all the work?”

“I won’t say no to that. I have something I need to take care of before bed anyway”

“Is everything okay?” Mark asked sweetly

“Yes, I just need to check on a friend. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Evelyn gave Mark a quick kiss and headed into the bedroom, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialled Henriettas number.

“Evie? Is everything okay?” She answered

“I was calling to ask you the same thing. Did anything out of the ordinary happen today?”

“Nope, it was perfectly normal. How about you?”

“Same here,” sighed Evie

“You sound disappointed?”

“Well, I can’t lie it would of been super fun to go on an adventure to find some mystical being that knows all. But it is also a relief that we seem to be normal, or back to normal at least.”

“I know what you mean, I’m still wondering what the hell happened that day. But let’s just be thankful that it seems to be over with. Is there anything else?”

“No, that’s all. Are you sure everything’s okay? You sound a bit quiet” Evie asked.

“Oh everything is fine I’m just exhausted, I had a very long day and I was just about to get in the shower.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I’ll let you go!”

“That’s okay, thank you for checking in.”

“Anytime Hen, take care”

“You too, Evie.”

As Evelyn hung up the phone, Mark knocked on the door before popping his head in.

“Is your friend alright, darling?” He asked.

“Yes, perfectly fine. Need any help cleaning up?”

“It’s all taken care of, how about we watch a movie before bed?”

“As nice as that sounds, how about we take a bath instead?” Evie asked as the leant forward to hold Marks hand and pull him closer to where she was sitting on the bed. He leaned down to kiss her and as he pulled away he said, “That would be perfect.”

The next morning Evie’s headache had returned worse than ever, she was supposed to be at work soon and she did not want to move.

“Mark? Are you still here?” She called out

“I’m just about to leave, my love.” His voice was getting closer with each word, he walked into the room and sat beside her on the bed.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I have the most terrible headache, I feel as if I couldn’t lift my head if I tried.”

“Let me get you some aspirin and water, maybe you should ask Carly for another day off.”

“I can’t do that to her, she had to let Abby go. She would be doing all of our work and that’s way too much.”

“I understand, my love. But if the aspirin doesn’t help then I want you to consider staying home please.” He kissed her forehead and exited the room.

Evelyn grabbed her phone and typed a text message to Henrietta.

How are you this morning? - E

Within seconds she had a response

I feel as if I’m dying, my head is on fire! - H

Well. So much for normal. - E

Mark had returned with Evie’s aspirin and water, once she had taken it he kissed her on the head once more and left for the day.

She was determined to get up and go to work. She forced herself out of bed and into the shower, maybe she should have the day off and go see Henrietta instead.

Henrietta was sitting on a bar stool at her kitchen bench, rubbing her head and sipping her coffee. She too, was waiting for aspirin to kick in and praying for strength to go in to work. She thought about Evie. Why were they both having headaches at the same time? But then not having headaches and being fine at the same time, too? Henriettas head hurt too much for her to be doing all of this thinking.

She finished her coffee and headed for the shower, she couldn’t afford a day off work yet no matter how awful she was feeling. She turned on the faucet and as soon as the temperature was right, she stepped in and washed her face immediately. How she longed to get back in bed and sleep the pain away, but instead she reached for the shampoo and planned out her work day in her head.

After she had gotten dressed, she was in the midst of putting her shoes on when there was a knock at her door. As she reached for the door handle her headache suddenly vanished, she turned the handle and Evie walked in before the door had completely opened.

“Did you feel that?” She said, almost yelling

“The headache is gone.” Answered Hen.

“What the hell is wrong with us?”

“I have no idea. But I have to go to work, can we talk about this later?”

“Sure, call me when you’re home.” Evie said as she left and headed to work herself. They would get to the bottom of this, she was sure of it.