The Thirty-Second Chapter
The sun was already setting when Rozelyn got over the fact that Romaine is a heathen by blood, by birth.
She glanced at her who was putting their fishing materials to the trunk of their navy blue Sedan. Her stomach was very much full with the charcoal-grilled fishes she and Romaine caught.
Rozelyn looked at herself at the side car mirror. She has indeed had huge changes ever since she became a blood-sucking vampire and dick-loving bitch.
She touched her eyes, her nose, her face, and her lips. She is now wholly immortal, a ‘Blood Rose Lady’. The only question that remains is how long does it take to have this kind of lifestyle? A thousand years? A million? Or as long as the earth is rotating on its axis?
To be frank, she felt as if there is something that makes her incomplete; despite the fact that she’s a Thaumaturge and a gifted vampire by the Blood Rose.
“I’m done, darling! Are you ready for the exhibit?”
She didn’t yield an answer. It seems Romaine can easily get over her heritage; the truth about her lineage.
The Blood Countess, Erzsebet Bathory, is a heathen—a blood witch who derives her powers through blood magic and blood sacrifice to their respective deities.
Romaine, as expected, is also a heathen by blood and by birth. But, according to Rozelyn’s stepmom, she ran away from home at a very young age since she doesn’t want to be as murderous as them—as brutal as them. But in Rozelyn’s calculations, there is no brutality difference between werewolves, vampires, and heathens if she were to be frank. They are all bloodlusting in their own ways and aspects.
Romaine cannot contend with their gruesome way of utilizing magic, aside from the fact that heathens are the archenemy of vampires and werewolves due to the fact that heathens want to administer the Blood Rose and the MoonFlower from the hold of vampires and werewolves.
“With the help of Nyra Ravenwood, the reigning supreme of the English coven at that time, I tasted the gifts of the beguiling Blood Rose,” Romaine spoke earlier as they were fishing by Lough Erin.
Nyra Ravenwood. The same vampire that helped Rosette Richards became immortal.
Rozelyn was debating now on what else her stepmom was hiding from her. She’s very much sure that Romaine has more secrets to unravel to her—that is if she chose to unravel them.
So, Rozelyn shove away that thought as she believed that there is a perfect timing for everything. There is a right time for everything and everyone.
She then painted a sweet stepdaughter's smile on her brown-skinned face and said, “I am very much excited for the art exhibit, Romaine.”
And so the two powerful vampires drove towards where the prestigious art exhibit is held, despite the question that was still lingering on Rozelyn’s mind: what else is Romaine hiding from the world?
***
Cyrill was staring at his friend.
“Why did you send me a message that you were in an accident? Why do you have to lie? To pretend?!”
Cyrill’s enraged voice echoed in the hospital room.
Silence shrouded the white-painted room as a nurse entered and checked his friend’s temperature. He waited for the nurse to finish—they waited for the nurse to finish.
“Answer me!”
“I was indeed in an accident. But not the same as I texted you. You should be freaking thankful that I didn’t end up like my twin who was killed by your own kind!”
He was talking about the man that Hemera and Vesta interrogated before the so-called ‘Death Summoners’ attacked the Zadzisai residence. The man who revealed the existence of the Black Peruvian Rose in Shamrock. Well, his twin happens to be in league with the Blood Mistress. The catch is, he was forced to be in league with her. Apparently, that’s the reason why Cyrill’s friend and his family were still breathing as the bitch threatened to kill his family if ever he will not be a spawn of her herd.
Cyrill’s friend was breathing heavily. Indeed he is, with the fact he was utilizing an oxygen tank and his entire body seems to have a hard time to lift even a finger.
Cyrill let the quietude sink in first before he asked the most dangerous question of all.
“Who is the Blood Mistress?”
Well, there it goes. He managed to ask it without burning his tongue.
“You’ve already met her,” his friend answered.
“What do you mean?!”
He didn’t answer for another second; then another minute.
“What the hell do you fucking mean that I met her?!”
“She wouldn’t let me speak her name…”
His friend tried to open his mouth as if to try to speak the Blood Mistress’ name this time. To no avail, Cyrill didn’t hear even a gasp from him.
“Then write it, you idiot!”
With pain still flowing in his friend’s veins, he lifted a finger—a hand.
Cyrill deduced that he was writing something on the air.
He was writing the letter M, then the letter A.
“What is that? WHO IS THE BLOOD MISTRESS?!”
Before Cyrill Clarke’s friend could hoist his hand again, his head suddenly snapped. It snapped as if his head was just a strayed twig in the middle of a forest.
Cyrill was gaping. He was debating if he should phone the nurse’s station, or is he gonna use his Pasiphae abilities, or is he gonna track the cause of his friend’s sudden death—the death that happened seconds ago. The death as if caused by someone who was monitoring them, watching them. The sharp sound of the monitor due to his now dead friend was a cacophony in his ears.
He roamed his eyes around the room looking for a CCTV or a hidden video camera and just randomly forgot that the now-corpse of his dead friend was lying on his own hospital bed.
The nurses, doctors, and other medical staff suddenly barged in inside the room, astonishing him. He then immediately went out of the room per the doctor’s instructions. Cyrill then grabbed his phone and dialled Romaine, who was still probably attending an art exhibit.
Yet, no Romaine answered the phone.
***
The blazing sun was drenching them with its rays and light. Maebh and Ludwig are now soaked in their own sweat as they lean by the glass window of the hospital.
They were watching Cyrill from across as he had no choice but to leave the room. This amused them, as their plans have worked...again.
Maebh Aisling Mullin, who was half-heathen by blood, clutched the doll that she used to kill Cyrill’s friend. At least in this way, she was able to draw blood magic and imitative magic using the doll as the medium.
“I never knew you were so talented, darling. I thought you’re only good in bed, it turns out you’re also good at snapping necks,” Ludwig then gives the woman a soft lover’s kiss on her right cheek.
“Thank you, dear!” Maebh sweetly said despite her true bitter nature.
Ludwig leaned again and necked Maebh which made the woman softly chuckled.
“Not here, Ludwig.”
“Why not? It’s a hospital anyway.” Ludwig then smirked; the smile of an asshole.
“There are peering eyes here. You don’t know who could be watching…”
He looked at her with incredulity. Who could be watching them within the white walls of the hospital?
Ludwig nodded; even a bit irritated as he didn’t get the chance to make a gesture of ‘public display of affection’.
“I’ll be discussing the next plan by tomorrow. Let us have a rest first. Even the most powerful earthly creatures need rest, so do we.” Maebh Aisling Mullin then walked away from the scene without looking at her lover again.
Ludwig watched the beautiful woman in a mustard-colored casual dress. Her auburn hair was untied, making it freely wobble side to side as she walked.
And he smiled as he opened the back of the doll; a note was hidden in there.
***
Rozelyn was feasting her eyes on the magnificent paintings on the wall, never mind its gore and creepiness. Romaine said this is a Halloween special edition. The art gallery was presenting some of the scariest paintings made by European artists, particularly Irish or anyone who had Irish blood.
Rozelyn sauntered to one of the paintings which depicts a gladiator scenery of sorts.
“Fortune Favors the Bold,” she muttered the painting’s title.
“By Odeya Salvaterre.”
Rozelyn jerked her head towards where Romaine was standing—behind her.
“You know her?” She asked.
“Aye. She was rumoured to be a witch; a heathen.”
Rozelyn nodded in discernment. “So there are many of them up until now?”
“Yes. It seems the Salem Witch Trials and the Essex Witch Hunt were not enough to purge them. They are just around us, Roz; roaming and watching us. They have always longed to snatch away the administering of the Mighty Five from us.”
A man in a tuxedo approached them and apologized for interrupting. Romaine then went with the man for some sort of a private business.
Rozelyn managed to roam around the art gallery...again. Her eyes have already seen and silently criticized all the displayed paintings on this place. She was growing bored to be honest. Romaine took her in here and just left her for two hours then attended to her for a minute then left her again for another hour. She felt like a little girl in this situation. Well, she likes paintings and art. But, she’s not die hard enough for this kind of luxury. She prefers chess tournaments and math quiz bowl and the likes.
This is her second round of walking and roaming and criticizing when she saw a person covered in black clothes approaching her.
‘Weird and eerie…’ Rozelyn mused as her eyes were focused on the man.
He seized her away from the crowd the moment the man was in front of Rozelyn. The man’s scent was new to his senses. It was strong and strange and…unusual.
“Beware of her who has the hair of autumn and the eyes of spring soil.”
It was the last line Rozelyn heard when her sight faded to black. She heard the loud thump of her body crashing on the concrete floor before being utterly consumed by the darkness.
***
Ludwig walked by the hospital hallway and took a turn by a corner. There was an empty room that seemed to be unoccupied. As Ludwig entered, he found the woman now unclothed; her wide-open crevice was beckoning him to enter her slowly but with predatory grace.
He wastes no time. He entered the wide-open cave as soon as he entered the dim-lighted room and unleashed his kraken.
***
Cyrill was walking by the hospital hallway per the doctor’s instructions to get out as they attended to his friend—as if they could still bring him back. The floor was so shiny that if he didn’t wear rubber shoes, he'd probably be sliding by now on the white lustrous tiled floor.
Cyrill gazes at his reflection by the luscious floor. He touched his flawless white face; his lips, his eye bags, his nose, and his growing stubble. Cyrill frowned as he noticed that he has a pimple by the corner of his right cheek—a sign of distress and lack of sleep. And due to his friend’s death, that’ll cause him a greater chance of having insomnia as his late friend was not able to reveal to him the identity of that nameless bitch. Well, he only managed to reveal “M” and “A”.
There are many people he knows who have those two first letters. Cyrill wasn’t even sure if that was the first name, perhaps it’s a last name or a title like a “Madam” or something. He just hopes his pimples won't multiply across his face this time. Well, he’s still handsome anyway—full of pimples or not. His godly and breath-taking beauty can never be surpassed by anyone on this planet. He is the sexiest and most attractive man—werewolf rather. And his powerfully-built body and the huge tower between his legs are more than just a bonus to any woman; they are a jackpot.
In a heartbeat, he heard a strange sound. No not a sound; they were sounds. It came from more than one person. With his supernatural senses, he searched for the origin of the noise.
When he turned by the corner, he spotted a different room above all other rooms in this hospital. There was a translucent glass situated at the upper center of the door. Curious as a cat, he took a little peek through it and saw the most stunning and luckiest view he ever witnessed: two people feasting on each other’s bodies in a missionary style. The woman’s breasts that had the same size of melons were bouncing in Cyrill’s eyes. But, he couldn’t get a clearer view of their faces as they were covered with glittery black masks.
‘Are they filming a sex tape?’ He mused as he touched his groin. It was hard against the door—as hard as a limestone. He gently massaged the buddy beneath his jeans when his phone rang—startling him and the two dancing people inside. He grabbed it and ran away as fast as he could.
“Come home now!” It was Romaine from the other line.
Without looking back, he heard that the door from that room opened and he just tread away as if he never witnessed that two masked people made fondue in the midst of the walls of this private hospital.
