Totally a Vampire Thing || ONC 2024 ||

Chapter 6. Virgins are for Sacrificing (Apparently)

A hand clapped over my mouth, stifling my scream. I tried to bite Bartolome, but he tossed me under one arm like I was feather-light and ran. Lilies and magnolias blurred together, flying past us. His speed was beyond what a human can achieve on foot, let alone a frail old man burdened by a yelling, squirming teen bundle.

I shut up, finally believing that vampires were the only logical explanation for the mysterious phenomena that I'd encountered since Wednesday. The blue glow and everything else.

"I detested human screams even in my wild youth," Bartolome ranted as he zipped us toward the parking lot, "back when someone was flogged, burned or tortured on every square by the Catholic Majesties. You live in a place that knows little pain, yet you insist on hollering at the slightest provocation. Brief life and shorter memory make the mortals so egocentric!"

He emphasized his last statement by braking hard and unceremoniously dropping me to the ground.

"Ouch!" I climbed to my shaking feet only to sway on them, trying to get my bearings.

We stopped just short of the parking lot. Bartolome's running made me motion sick, so the last thing I wanted was to resume the vampiric locomotion, but I had to ask.

"Why did you stop, Monsignor? Cruz's car is over there." I jabbed my thumb at the gray of the concrete visible between the tree trunks.

Bartolome hiked his pants up and sniffed the air. "Because we are not hunting a car, Señorita, we are hunting the vile abductors of my grandson. There!" He jabbed the air with his own thumb, imploring me to look to my right.

Blue glow, so faint it was nearly imperceptible, hung behind some shrubs.

I blinked, and it didn't dissipate. "You mean this eerie glow, right?"

The indefatigable old man grabbed my hand and charged into the thicket. I dangled in his wake like a rag-doll, my feet barely touching the ground and branches slapping me from all sides.

"Cruz said you can see the magic energy. That's quite an accomplishment for a mortal. Did you have anyone accused of witchcraft among your ancestors? Or any hippies?" Bartolome asked, but he didn't give me a chance to answer his dopey questions.

As soon as we were through the shrubs, he let go of my hand, and I dropped on my ramp at the edge of a flower bed. Three guesses what flowers surrounded me on all sides? If you said lilies, congratulations...

Only the lilies here weren't individually staked and pampered by a gardener's hand to greet us with proud nods.

Sad, broken flowers littered the ground, dying slowly on the rich humus that had once nourished them. The soil was so mercilessly trampled and torn up by boot heels, that bulbs stuck out of the cuts like bones. If lilies could cry, these would weep.

The ravished garden sunk my heart into the pit of my stomach. If they did this to flowers, what did they do to Cruz?

Bartolome dropped to one knee and scooped a crushed bloom along with some dirt from a stiletto footprint. He squished his purchase in his hand until dirt and lily juice was spilling between his fingers. Blue glow crackled to life around his fist. He brought it under his nose. His eyes hooded in concentration, brows wiggled to help his memories.

"This villainess from room eleven!" he exclaimed after a pregnant pause and hurtled the dirt at the trees. He had squeezed the soil so hard in his grasp, that clay baked into bullets. They pelted magnolia's leathery leaves and bark, leaving smoking holes.

"Freida! Freida!" Bartolome lamented, pulling on his hair and smearing its venerable silver with brown earth. "Long I have suspected that thy allegiance with our Coven was false! Long had I sensed that you'd murdered my beloved Clarissa and forever after lusted after the fruit of my loins—"