Chapter 8: Repeat
Back at the Blanco family manor main lounge, Isabel and Pablo were waiting for their 'parent' vampire to teleport back.
"You shouldn't let her go alone, she can't fight at all." admonished Pablo worried sick about Catherine's accident.
"Even an idiot like her can't manage to get hurt wearing so many magic items." distracted from summarising this month's income and expenditures, Isabel replied.
Pablo sank into a sofa with a sigh, his eyes wandering around the room. A big white stone fireplace occupied the whole wall they sat in front of, an adjacent wall contained black painted reflective windows replaced when they moved here three years ago to enable walking around during the day, opposite wall was covered in hunting trophies and stuffed whole animals on shelves.
"Remind me why we haven't thrown all this trash away." disgusted with the 'decoration', if you can call it that, consisting of dead squirrels and beavers, he said.
"Catherine likes the change." another short reply came his way. Pablo started to sheathe and unsheathe the sword lying on his knees. Noise it made forced Isabel to throw a book from the table straight at his face. Protecting his well-groomed black beard and mustache with his arm, he stopped moving.
That is until on the carpet in front of the fireplace two silhouettes crashed flat akin to a sack of potatoes carried up and let go, an unmistakable for any vampire smell of blood coming from the bigger one. Luca and Catherine arrived with a literal bang of their bones upon contact with the floor, he still unconscious, she hissing with barred fangs and unhealthy, shiny red skin, like a cooked lobster.
"That damned virgin!" she growled, sitting up with Pablo's help. Isabel quickly took a look at her wounds, one bullet lodged inside her hip spewing white mist out of the hole, two insignificant scratches left after a short while of regeneration by two other hits that went through. Isabel quickly put her hand on Catherine's belt and took out a neodymium magnet from it, then put it over her Lady's wound. Pieces of silver came out and it started to close visibly in just a second.
"Unpleasant trip?" sarcastically said Isabel.
"What bastard seeks death?!" growled Pablo, changed due to his agitation from a handsome Spaniard to a grey, bald monstrosity. Perhaps this change why his lover eventually stopped sleeping with him after a hundred-year relationship.
"Nobody and voyage was great, thank you very much. Church recently came up with some weird metal-hurling-silver contraptions, I didn't expect it at all. You have to warn everybody to run when they see such objects." looking less well-done and more raw already, she started gesticulating the shape of a gun to her audience.
"You mean guns?" Pablo frowned in doubt.
"Those are guns? No, they should be bigger." Catherine recalled a musket used in one of the civil war battles she witnessed.
"Not to doubt your ignorance, but we have a pressing matter to attend. That kid might be dying and you explicitly shouted for a good while that he has to be kidnapped alive, or something changed from yesterday?" Isabel moved on to the second arrival after tending to Catherine. Luca not responding to a kick of her high heel at all, she could only pronounce him deceased with no experience nursing the living.
"Don't scare me like that!" Catherine scrambled on all fours to put her face in front of Luca's nose, despite rough treatment his breath steady. Relieved expression turned concerned in a flash as she realized it might not mean much.
"Why is he unconscious?" touching Luca's chest and face she asked uneasily.
"How can we know, nobody's an expert on brats here. Doesn't look special enough to make such a drama getting him here. What for either way, we have a lot of bloodslaves, better or worse taste doesn't matter much." curiously stood beside Isabel over Luca's body Pablo.
"That doesn't seem to be your business, now run to find a doctor. I don't believe nobody in the family knows what to do, but if really not, go hire a wizard off of the black market." Catherine's brain working overtime managed to come up with directions.
"Yes, Mistress." replied Pablo reluctantly walking out.
"Run!" she yelled at him, Pablo jolted and sped up his pace.
Luca woke up feeling a vaguely familiar sense of pain in every fiber of his being. Like a year ago, he opened his eyes and witnessed an unexplainably bizarre sight, a man waving a glowing piece of wood above his chest muttering foreign-sounding words. Petrified long enough for a woman standing a step back to notice his awakening, he saw her smile warmly with joy upon catching his sight.
"Great job, go to Pablo for payment. How are you feeling Luca?" she asked shoving aside the wizard. Luca blinked rapidly a dozen times, the scene not changed in the slightest, he hoarsely replied.
"Hungry and thirsty."
"Oh, another issue. I will call Isabel, wait here little cutie. Don't get up." making a fuss covering him with a blanket, she left after the wizard.
Luca had a minute to think about his situation, having used his power for the second time he tried to compare both experiences. So I need to intensely wish for something while upset for it to work? And I will faint afterwards. He concluded just as the pretty lady came back presumably with Isabel holding a jug of water and a dead peacock.
"Don't worry, soon it will be ready. I'm Catherine Blanco by the way, what is your name cutie?" she sat down at Luca's feet while Isabel started a fire and stood there plucking the bird and staring at him.
"Granger, Luca Granger. Is that food?" after drinking his fill he couldn't come up with another explanation for the weird maid's behavior.
"Yes." Isabel replied as she spiked the peacock with a fireplace poker and put it over the fire.
"It isn't." with conviction Luca said.
"It is." not concerned Isabel continued.
"Not a good habit to be picky." smiling Catherine reprimanded. "Now, I think some clarity in our relations would be in place. What happened to the men we sent to kidnap you?" she asked gently.
Luca sat up in shock. Left silent, he thought maybe it was a joke or he misheard. Catherine showed her fangs and turned her tender nails into claws in front of his eyes, then maybe not satisfied with her minimal changes as a high-purity vampire, she pointed at Isabel. Her middle-purity form wrinkled her face into an old granny's appearance and mildly discolored her skin, this Luca could see clearly for sure against the background of flames. Bulging his eyes out, two women patiently waited for him to respond. Out of the fire and into a frying pan, he could only concentrate and put faith in the 'spell' he apparently managed to use, a sequence of events not clear at all, but a chance is a chance. This time proficient in accumulating negative emotions as vampires obviously could not kidnap him for a benevolent reason, he managed to connect his 'Force' and his will together.
"Get lost!" he shouted, energy spreading throughout the room tried to plunge inside the two women, but strangely it failed. Confused with its inability to cater to Luca's wishes, part of the energy returned to him, but a much bigger half of it went berserk in a vortex shredding the environment centered on Catherine and Isabel. As they both were in the form that enhances their senses, they managed to jump out of the epicenter with minor injuries and shredded clothes, the fireplace and half of the couch reduced to ruble. Luca backlashed himself, his legs covered with deep scratches, hurt only that much instead of committing involuntary suicide because Catherine realized his danger and punched him out of the couch. Not fainted but very much wishing for it due to his broken ribs and other injuries superimposed into agony, Luca could only groan on the floor and look at a stuffed head of a moose above.
"Well, they should be minced meat." Isabel confirmed the fate of her subordinates examining the damage caused by Luca.
"Call back that guy, some more healing is in order. Don't move honey, okay?" Catherine looked at Luca like a treasure, she got an idea why his blood is so special. Magic without a spell or medium and so strong at his age, she decided to train him as a member of her family instead of simply enslaving him in the manor as a source of her food.
At this moment both of them smelled Luca's blood seeping out of him, Catherine restrained the impulse having just last night drank several liters of it, Isabel not immune to temptation pounced on Luca's feet.
"Stop!" yelled Catherine using her domination power over same-blood cousin first time in their long lives to make her freeze with mouth salivating, a struggling expression on her face. Reason and emotions for her Lady prevailed, as she withdrew from the transformed state and acted as if nothing happened, an answer concerning Luca's kidnapping order forming in her mind.
"Take out clothes, we can't be seen like this." Isabel demanded she rummages through the belt and wears something not ruined. After they both changed attire to similar black dresses Catherine likes to put on herself, Isabel left to get the wizard back while pulling uncomfortably on the tight area around her breasts.
"You can't use magic like that, sweetie." Catherine kneeled beside him and started petting his head. "Maybe we have some misunderstanding, I sent people to free you from your captors. Doesn't it seem fishy that a nurse draws your blood to the point of making you almost dry? You see, she was selling it to vampires like me, little wizard's blood is very valuable. There is no place for you in the Church orphanage once they find out you're a wizard either, it would be great to not burn you on a stake. Your only choice is to follow me, monsters stick together, right? Listen to big sister and be obedient from now on." she tried hard to present reasons for Luca to stop using uncontrolled magic and stay quiet. Powerless Luca stopped groaning, not to believe immediately, he couldn't help but think about his parents abandoning him the moment they knew of his powers and Father Roberts's actions as they met. Now as the existence of vampires was confirmed, it was pretty apparent that he would die that day under his hands if Luca's power could be detected. Nurse Angelica's actions are suspected to be true too, regardless, he had to look at the present problem. It doesn't matter, I have to escape or she will squeeze my blood even more than Angelica. I have magic, doesn't it mean I can do anything? Luca thought, his eyes firmed up.
Confidence soaring despite his pathetic state didn't go unnoticed by Catherine, baffled by his reaction, she figured out her speech somehow failed. Persuasion check not passed, she could only ensure her ticket to coming back to life or at least becoming a pure vampire didn't make trouble once his magic recovers.
"I'm sorry but this is for your own good, don't hate me, boy." out of her belt she took out a collar made of blueish metal, covered in runes, and with a big padlock in the front, key inserted. She opened it and put it on Luca's neck, it shrunk automatically, runes swimming under Luca's skin left the metal bare.
"No…" in a small voice of protest, Luca could feel a certain barrier unfolding around what he assumed to be magic inside his body. Now stripped of a comeback opportunity, he regretted not speaking out to relax Catherine's vigilance.
"It's fine, it's fine. You have nowhere to go, so why not stay with Blanco family? Sister will adopt and care about you, brother Pablo will train you to play with swords, boys love swords, don't they? Sister Isabel will feed and teach you." slowly deciding on his future life, Catherine continued to speak to a silently bleeding Luca.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone