Totally a Vampire Thing || ONC 2024 ||

Chapter 9. Sinister Plans

Bartolome told me to be on my guard.

If I listened to him, I wouldn't dangle five feet above the floor, with a wickedly sharp knife pinching my neck. But if you saw Cruz in that coffin, you'd understand why I bolted to his side!

Poor guy looked frozen in torment, despite being unconscious. My heart ached in my chest so badly, I almost sliced my own throat on the blade while twisting my head to glimpse him.

"Let's not do anything rush, Freida," Bartolome said.

The arms that held me were shapely, and cold, despite velvet sleeves lined with fur. There was no heartbeat, and no breath touched my hair. Of course, it was Freida. Who else could it be?

"Only fools rush in, Tolo," Freida said in a sonorous voice that even sounded like it came from beyond the grave. "Just what I told Corazon, 'my dear, it doesn't matter that you screwed up. Fools rush in. We'll have them.'"

"That's right, you have me." Bartolome folded his arms across his chest. "Let the children go. What use are they to you? The girl is a helpless babe even by the mortal's accounts, and the boy will take decades to train before he hunts for you. I'll serve as many years as you'd ask in exchange."

I stopped my squirming and gaped at him. Did he always mean to do this? Come before Freida and surrender on her terms? Bartolome noticed my widened eyes and shrugged one shoulder, nearly imperceptibly. It could have meant, I'm playing it by air or not now, mortal or deal with it. Regardless of what he meant, I dry-swallowed with anxiety, because Freida wasn't buying it.

She laughed so hard; her levitating body shook, and the knife pierced my skin, drawing a drip of blood. I hoped Bartolome wouldn't say anything funnier than offering to trade for Cruz, because she'd nick my artery in her merriment.

"Don't insult my intelligence, Tolo," she said after having her fill of cackles. "My Fledgling woke up from a single, accidental touch of this girl-child's hand."

That damn coffee! Why couldn't I hold on to the cup? If not for my butter-fingers, Cruz wouldn't be lingering between life and death in a vampire's lair!

"He tingles with thirst even when he touches her scarf," Freida said, throwing my thoughts in disarray.

Maybe the nature of his interest in me was sus, but he kept my scarf!

"Oh, Cruz," I whispered, tears welling in my eyes.

"Once we share her blood and he tastes the delights of flesh, he would become the most powerful vampire in seven generations," Freida said with a satisfaction that loosened a screw in my head.

My tears dried out on the fires of outrage. "That's abuse of minors, you stinking fossil!" I mean, I saw the problem with pissing off a vampire holding a knife to my throat, but come on! Things she said about Cruz were vile, and totally, unimaginably wrong for our times. Plus, she smelled of leaf mold, wet fur and baby powder. So, was I wrong? Never!

Freida scoffed. "When I was your age, sixteen-year-olds were warriors and kings."

"Oh, snap." I had to either let go of my hard-won feeling that I was a grown-up, or I had to betray Cruz to a gruesome fate. I hated both options, so I tried to kick her shins, without simultaneously impaling myself on her knife. The result was rather pathetic and Freida handled my wriggling without difficulty.

"Hybrids are truly special," she addressed herself to someone of her own size, Bartolome. "A youth is more malleable, just like you once were. Now, you're too old and too stubborn, and the increase in your power is questionable at best."