Chapter 1 – The Order of The Wolf.
''Who would do something like this?'' Melina and Kaylee were standing in their detective agency's office. The whole apartment was a total mess. All the documents of their case files were scattered over the floor and various cabinets were thrown open. It was obvious the person who had done this had been searching for something. ''A burglar, maybe?'' was Kaylee's suggestion for the culprit. She proceeded to pick up some papers from the floor in front of her. ''Who'd want to break in here? There's nothing worth taking after all'' Melina noted, although that only made her worry more. If there was nothing of value for the thief to take, then what had they been looking for? ''What about your parents?'' Kaylee put the documents she was holding back on top of their desk. ''Wouldn't they notice anything?'' She turned around to face Melina, whose face was full of fear. ''My parents...!'' Melina hurried out of the office, down the stairs, to the area of the building where her parents lived. What if the thief had gone to Melina's parents after they couldn't find what they were looking for in here? ''Mel, wait!'' Kaylee yelled while scurrying after her. She ran after Melina as fast as her feet could carry her. Kaylee ran after Melina as fast as she could. ''Don't worry! I'm sure they'll be fine!'' She tried to convince her, but Melina had already thrown open the door to the living room and stood there in silence. No one. There was no one to be seen, yet the television and the lights had been left on. That wasn't something Melina's parents would normally do. They would at least leave a note when they decided to leave suddenly. No, Melina was sure about it: something very strange was going on here.
Let's start at the beginning of the story. Let me introduce myself. My name is Melina Parker. My best friend Kaylee Sheinfield and I are running our own detective agency together. 'There's no case we can't solve, and no criminal we can't catch!' is what we always used to say. Even though we call it a detective agency, we're actually just journalists who write articles for our local newspaper. I write, and Kaylee uses her camera to take pictures. Strange and mysterious cases always seem to find their way to us though! However, we never would have thought what happened was only the beginning of an adventure which was bigger than we could ever dream of. It all started on a normal day, when we were sitting in our office, waiting for a new case to solve.
Melina was leaning back in her office chair while sighing deeply. She complained loudly. ''It's been days and we still don't have a new case to write about! How hard could it be to find some news?'' Kaylee was stretched out opposite of her on the couch in the office. She kept herself busy watching some music videos on her phone. ''Did you hear about that guy from Pixieville who learned his parrot whistle along with the flea march? It's all over the news, maybe we can interview him?'' she suggested while quickly looking up from her phone, careful not to miss anything from her videos. Melina slowly raised one eyebrow. ''Wouldn't everyone already know it if it's all over the news, though?'' Kaylee shrugged, there were no other ideas that came to her mind. ''We need real news, something no one has heard about yet. Something which would make everyone want to read our articles!'' Melina stood up from her desk and walked over to the window, hoping that it would give her some inspiration. ''What if...'' Kaylee began, but she didn't finish her sentence. ''What?'' ''Forget it, it's stupid''. ''No, what?'' Melina wasn't going to let it go that easily. With a curious look on her face she went over to where Kaylee was sitting. ''Well...'' Kaylee hesitated. ''Ever heard about the story of Frederik von Kamelot?'' Melina shook her head, which made Kaylee show her a news article on her phone. ''Sudden disappearance of scientist'' Melina read the headline out loudly. Kaylee nodded in accordance. ''Rumors tell his old house is haunted. Whenever someone enters the building they hear strange noises, as if someone is there, but there isn't anyone around''. Kaylee continued, but Melina just shrugged. ''Maybe it's his old assistant, or his family, returning to retrieve something they forgot to take when leaving' she answered, but Kaylee shook her head. ''They all left long ago and never came back''. ''I'm sure there's a logical explanation for it'' Melina said, although she didn't sound so sure. ''Maybe'' Kaylee said. ''Shouldn't we investigate it for that reason? At least we have something to write about then: 'Ghost in Von Kamelot mansion: fact or fiction?''' Melina hesitated for a moment, but eventually ended up taking Kaylee up on her offer. She was right, at least they had something to write about then. ''Fine. Let's do it''.
At the same time, in Pixieville, three elves were hanging around in the living room of their house: two boys and one girl. ''When do you think Mabel will return?'' The female elf nervously asked the two boys in front of her while pacing back and forth across the room. She had short, shoulderlenght dark pink hair and wore gothic-like clothes, but for some reason the girl still had some sort of feminine vibe to her. One of the boys, an elf with short brown hair and freckles on his face, yawned lazily. ''Who cares? Don't worry so much, it probably isn't anything serious. Maybe The Wolf just wants a partner to play scrabble with''. The girl sighed. It was obvious the boy's answer irritated her. ''You never know how to comfort someone, now do you, Derek?'' She turned to face the other guy in the room. ''She's been gone for so long. Shouldn't you have gone with her, Sean? The Wolf asked for you to come too, you know''. The other guy, an elf named Sean, was playing around on his phone. He had dark brown hair up to his shoulders. ''Why? I've got more important stuff to do''. He didn't even take the time to look up at her while answering. ''I've got more important stuff to do'' Derek imitated him. ''He thinks he's too good for people like us'' he continued spatting out. ''Shut up, Derek!'' The girl snapped at him. Sean didn't look as if he cared at all about what Derek was saying about him. His face was still fixated on the screen of his phone as he decided to just ignore him. ''Worry about Mabel instead'' the girl added. Derek, annoyed by the girl, leaned against the couch he was sitting on. It wasn't long before his eyes lit up again. ''Do you think she brought cheese twisters?'' he asked eagerly. ''Seriously? Mabel's gone and the only thing you can think about is food'' The girl rolled her eyes.
All of a sudden the front door swung open. A girl with dark, shoulderlength hair wearing a red kimono-like jacket stood in the door opening. ''Mabel! Finally, you're back!'' The other girl yelled while leaping towards her. Derek eagerly followed her. ''Did you bring cheese twisters?'' he asked. Mabel ignored Derek's question. ''Don't worry'' she said to the girl. ''I was just at The Wolf's''. She paused to look at Sean before continuing again. ''Where you should have been as well. Why weren't you there?'' While Mabel was waiting for an answer, Derek impatiently tugged at her kimono jacket. ''But what about the cheese twisters?'' he asked once again. Sean shrugged. ''I didn't feel like going''. ''You didn't feel like going?'' Mabel echoed. ''I'm not doing this because I want to either. You're one of the henchmen of The Wolf, so act like one''. Irritated by the response of her teammate she turned to face Derek, who was still waiting behind her. He had already opened his mouth to say something, but Mabel got to it first. ''And no, I did not bring cheese twisters'' she snapped, upon which she walked further into the living room. Derek shut his mouth again. ''This is all your fault'' he blamed Sean after looking for someone to place the blame on. ''If you just went with her then she wouldn't be mad right now. Now we don't have cheese twisters on cheese twister-thursday!'' He stomped with his feet on the floor. ''It's wednesday!'' Sean called after him. There was a short moment of silence. ''I knew that!'' Derek protested, although it was obvious he didn't.
''So, how did it go with The Wolf?'' The other girl from the group asked. ''It went well. The Wolf has a job for us to do'' Mabel answered calmly. ''For ALL of us''. She added, directed in particulair to Sean and Derek. She retrieved a piece of paper from her kimono jacket and waved it up high in the air. ''We have to pay a visit to the address listed on here and bring the girl that lives there back to The Wolf''. Derek's eyes lit up. ''Are we supposed to torture someone? It's been ages since I've last done that! Finally, an interesting job!'' ''Ew! No way in hell that I'm doing something like that!'' The girl with pink hair replied. ''What if my clothes get dirty?!'' Sean just looked at Derek, one eyebrow raised up. What was he talking about? He had never tortured someone before in his life. Mabel let out a deep, irritated sigh. ''Veronica, your clothes are the last thing you should worry about, being one of the righthand henchmen of The Wolf''.''So... does that mean that we're going to torture someone?'' An excited grin had formed on Derek's face. ''No! We won't torture anyone, unless there is no other way!'' Mabel snapped at him. Disappointed, Derek stared down at the ground. ''All we have to do is make sure that the girl who lives there will come with us, one way or another'' Mabel continued. ''Tonight is the night. Our plan can't fail''.
Even though Melina was scared to death of ghosts, she found herself making her way to the Von Kamelot mansion with Kaylee later that night. They ended up in front of the gate of the mansion, which also held the laboratory inside. Melina tried shaking the gate, but it didn't even move an inch. ''Locked. Too bad, let's go back and find us another scoop elsewhere''. It didn't sound like Melina had any regrets about that at all, in fact, she was actually kind of happy to not be able to get inside the mansion. Kaylee however, thought differently. She took something small out of the pocket of her jeans. It was a hairpin. She tried picking the lock with it. Melina rolled her eyes. Didn't stuff like that only work in movies? ''Let's go home, this is pointless''. ''Got it!'' Kaylee happily lifted the hairpin up in the air. The gate was unlocked. She opened the gate with a soft push. ''Still planning on leaving now?'' she asked Melina once the gate was open. Melina hesitated. She stared at the big mansion looming behind the gate. ''Isn't breaking in illegal?'' Truth be told, she was more worried about the ghosts living in the abandoned house than the fact that they were doing something illegal, but she would never admit that to Kaylee. ''It's not exactly breaking in when no one lives there, right...?'' Kaylee tried to convince her, which Melina couldn't help but agree on. She let out a deep sigh. ''...Fine. Let's go''.
Once inside the house, Melina and Kaylee arrived in a huge hallway. In the middle of the hallway was an enormous staircase leading upstairs, splitting up in two different hallways at the top. ''So dark... Can we turn the lights on?'' Kaylee was already feeling around the wall with her fingers in search of the light switch. As quick as she flicked it on, Melina also flicked it off again. ''What are you doing?!'' she snapped at Kaylee. ''If we turn on the lights everyone will know that we're here! Before you know it, a neighbour shows up at the door, or worse: the police''. ''But what else can we do?'' Kaylee asked. ''I can't see a thing here''. Melina had a solution for that. She took two flashlights out of the bag she brought with her and held one towards Kaylee. ''We can search the rooms with these''. The quicker we're gone from here, the better, she thought. She didn't want to spend any more time in this house than necessary. Once they had their flashlights turned on, the two girls went into the hallway on the right of them. The hallway ended with a door leading to the living room. In the middle of the living room stood an enormous fireplace with a family portrait hanging above it. Melina shone her flashlight on the portrait. The portrait showed the scientist: Frederik von Kamelot, along with an elderly female pixie, and a younger pixie girl. ''Do you think this was his family?'' She asked Kaylee, who was investigating on the other side of the room. She turned around to face her friend and give her an answer to her question, but while doing that she accidentally hit the suit of armor that was standing on display next to her. With a loud bang the armor's helmet hit the ground. Startled by the noise, she ran to Melina as fast she could, and shone her flashlight on the portrait as well. ''I think so. Stories tell he had a wife and a daughter. After he disappeared they moved away to another village, far, far away from here. His wife didn't want to live in the mansion anymore, it gave her too many bad memories''. Melina couldn't blame her, she couldn't imagine someone wanting to stay here either way. She continued her search, but paused upon hearing the creeching sound of someone walking on the stairs. ''What was that?'' She shone her flashlight on the hallway, but there was no one to be seen. ''What?'' Kaylee didn't hear the sound. ''I thought I heard something... must be mistaken''. Melina said, although she wasn't too convinced about it. ''Want to take a look...?'' Kaylee asked her. They looked at eachother, both hoping the other would make the decision for them, until finally, Kaylee held her arm out to Melina. ''If you're going, I'll go too'' she decided. Melina nodded. She took her arm, and both girls, holding onto eachother tight, walked towards the stairway.
They made their way upstairs. Once upstairs there were two ways they could take: left or right. Both ways ended in two long hallways. They decided upon taking the left hallway and opened the first door they found. ''Hello...?'' Melina shone her flashlight through the room. The room appeared to be some sort of study. In the middle of the room a desk was placed, which was surrounded by high-looking bookcases. At first it looked like no one was in the room, until suddenly the sound of something falling to the floor could be heard. Still holding onto Kaylee, Melina slowly shambled towards the desk. Once she was in front of it she bent over to take something off the floor. ''Nothing to worry about'' she said while holding the item she retrieved from the ground in the air. ''It's just a book''. ''What do you mean 'nothing to worry about'?'' Kaylee sounded terrified. ''Unless books can fly from a bookcase by themselves, you mean''. Now Melina also started to realize what was up. If there was no one inside the room, then how could the book fall from the bookcase? She gave Kaylee a significant look, who immediately knew what she meant with that. Both of them turned around to face the door, but it was already too late. With a loud noise the door closed on it's own. Melina hurried to open it, hoping she and Kaylee could still escape, but it was in vain. The door was shut tight and there was no way to open it. ''We're locked in''. Melina let go of the handle while sighing, but they weren't off the hook yet. Out of nowhere the light in the room started to suddenly flicker as well. Startled, both Melina and Kaylee slowly backed away to a corner of the room, until they stood side by side with their backs against eachother.
''Calm down! I'm sure there's a logical explanation for all of this''. Melina tried to calm herself down while talking out loud, but Kaylee thought differently. ''It's the ghost of Frederik von Kamelot!'' she yelled frightened. ''Stop it! Ghosts don't exist!'' Melina yelled back, although she didn't sound very sure of it. Kaylee ignored her remarks and used her magic to make something appear in her hand. It was a pair of glasses. She always wore one, but this wasn't one she was normally wearing. This one looked strange, like some kind of binoculars with all sorts of antennas and radars attached to it. ''What's that?'' Upon seeing the weird glasses Melina forgot about her fear of ghosts for a moment. She gave Kaylee a weird look. ''An infra-red pair of glasses to view ghosts with''. Kaylee explained while putting the glasses on her face. ''I bought it on the internet. One of my favourite idols had one, so I had to buy one as well''. She tried turning some of the buttons that were set on the frame of the glasses, but the glasses didn't seem to work too well as she couldn't see a thing. That didn't stop her from wearing it though. Melina rolled her eyes. Of course the glasses weren't going to work, they were just some sort of cheap children's toy. ''Kaylee, take that off. You look ridiculous''. ''It's not ridiculous! I'm sure that-'' Kaylee couldn't finish her sentence. One of the books that was sitting on one of the bookcases flew off the shelves and almost hit Kaylee's head if it wasn't for Melina shoving her aside. Stunned, Kaylee slowly lifted her glasses, as if not realizing what just happened. ''We have to get out of here!'' Melina yelled at her. Another book flew off the shelves, this time towards Melina. She was just in time to dodge it. Kaylee clearly agreed. There was only one problem... The door was still locked tight.
At the same time, the group of elves from Pixieville arrived at the address from the note. ''Number 36. This is it''. Mabel said. It was the house of Melina and her parents. Inside the lights were on, as Melina's parents were watching television in the living room. Derek rubbed his hands together. A grin appeared on his face. ''Torture time''. Mabel grabbed the iron necklace he was wearing and dragged him along with her. ''No torture time. We're just taking the ladder upstairs and take the girl with us without them knowing. We're not going to hurt anyone''. Still dragging Derek with her, Mabel and the others went upstairs, to Melina and Kaylee's detective office. Their office apartment was build on the roof of Melina's parents house. It had actually been used as an attic before, but since Melina and Kaylee didn't have enough money to rent their own place, and as they didn't make use of it that much anyway, Melina's parents agreed to let them use the place. They had two options to get to the roof: one being through the house, the other being with the ladder Melina's parents had build especially for Melina and Kaylee to use to get to their office. Once upstairs, Sean kicked the door in. ''You can come with us peacefully, or...'' threatened Derek, entering first, but it was of no use. No one was home. ''No one's here'' Sean confirmed. ''All this nonsense for nothing. Can we leave now?'' Mabel shook her head upon hearing Seans question. ''We're not leaving until we've searched everything in here''.
It didn't take the group long to search the whole room, as the office was quite small. Derek opened all of the cabinets and threw everything that was inside on the floor so the whole floor ended up scattered with files and papers. The other members were a bit more discreet in their searches. ''There's nothing here. What do we do now?'' Veronica looked up at Mabel, who began to grin. ''Well, it didn't have to come to this, but we don't have another choice. It's time to bring her parents a visit''. ''YES!'' Derek yelled. ''Torture time!'' Before anyone had the chance to object he was already out of the room. He wanted to be the first one downstairs. Mabel sighed deeply and went after him, the other two following her closely.
Melina's parents were still busy watching television downstairs. They didn't suspect anything yet. ''Mwahahaha, it's time for your doom!'' Derek yelled while running off the stairs. Melina's parents, two elderly pixies, got scared out of their wits by his sudden yelling. Derek took advantage of the situation to take a rope out of one of his pockets and held it out to Veronica, who, along with the others, had now arrived downstairs as well. ''Here. Help me to tie them up''. Compliant, Veronica took the other end of the rope and helped Derek to tie up the two pixies. ''Tell me. Where is she?'' Derek asked them once he was done. He glared into Melina's father's eyes with an ominous look and tried to sound as mean as possible. ''And no jokes!'' he added. Mabel and Veronica waited patiently behind him, their arms crossed, waiting to see where this would take them. ''I don't know what you're talking about'' the man said. Sean was inspecting the living room in the meantime and stood still in front of a cabinet with some photo frames displayed on top of it. Most of the photos were of the family, but there was also a photo of Melina between them. That would probably be the girl The Wolf wanted them to take, Sean thought to himself. He took the picture out of the frame and put it in one of his pockets. Maybe it would come in handy if they had to search for her. After that he went back to the others. Derek was still uttering threats to the man, with no results. Growing impatient because he was taking too long, Sean grabbed hold of the man's shirt. ''Where's the girl?'' he repeated Derek's question. ''Your daughter'' he added. Before the man could answer, Derek shoved Sean aside. ''Beat it, It's my turn to torture someone'' he hissed. Sean shrugged. ''Then why haven't you succeeded yet?'' ''What did you say?!'' Derek reacted fiercely. ''Guys, this will get us nowhere''. Mabel interfered between the two elves. She pushed them aside so she could stand in front of the two pixies. ''Just tell us where she is''. ''Whatever you want from her, we won't betray her''. The man insisted. ''You won't? Just you wait...'' Derek threatened him, but Mabel put her arm in front of him, holding him back. ''That won't work. They won't tell us anything, no matter what we'll put them through''. She turned around to face the others. ''We'll just have to find her ourselves. Sean, Veronica, put them in the closet. Let's go back to The Wolf''. She paused for a moment to look at Melina's parents and gave them an ice cold stare. ''We'll find her. That I assure you...''
A/N: Finally the first chapter is translated! I'm slowly trying to translate the others as well! My english isn't the best, but the story only starts to get better after chapter 3, so please bear with me!(: Hope you'll enjoy it!