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—"

"Monsignor? What happened to Cruz?" I pulled Bartolome's pale pink sleeve and swallowed some bile. "Did this Freida...kill him? Is he dead?"

"No, my grandson is not dead. It might be hard for your mortal mind to grasp it, but his fate is more grim than death. He's been enslaved to his nature and undeath by the Mistress who honed her cruelty over three millennia. Damn you, Freida! Damn you!"

Worse than death? Slavery? Bartolome was wrong about my mortal mind. It reeled thinking about these things and Cruz. A throbbing ache spread through my chest with every heartbeat, making it difficult to breathe.

I tagged on the vampire's sleeve like a child. "Is there anything we could do to save Cruz? Please, Monsignor?"

"We? Us? Me and one feeder when I need cavalry?" Bartolome glared, as it was my fault I wasn't powerful enough in his eyes.

I swallowed my pride. "Okay, not me. But could anyone else help?"

"If the whole Coven dropped their geriatric pursuits and yammering..." He shook his head dejectedly. "No. They haven't forgiven me for Clarissa. They would mobilize too late for Cruz. No, Señorita, it's just us, and we are—"

He cut himself abruptly and his eyes blazed. Hope jolted my heart. "What is it, Monsignor?"

"And we are back in business!" He scratched his already soiled mane to gather his thoughts, as if they were fleas. "You are still here. You met me and told me what's going on. Ergo, Freida's sinister plan went awry!"

"W-why does she need me?" I stammered, but he grabbed me by the shoulders and pierced me with his turbulent gaze.

"Focus, focus! Cruz's freedom depends on it. Tell me again about the covenant you've made with my granddaughter. Leave nothing out"

I did, between hiccups and sobs that came out of nowhere.

"Aha!" Bartolome exclaimed, grabbed me into his armpit and raced to the manor. "Aha! You thwarted their scheme, Señorita! I'd kiss you, but we're not out of the woods yet. Maybe later, once Cruz is safe, I'd kiss you for being more powerful than I thought."

My heart pounded in time with vampires lighting-fast strides, ready to jump out of my chest and run, run, run, chasing after the new hope. "What did I do? How?"

"In your quest to see your love, you arrived half-an-hour earlier, thus evading Freida and Corazon's snare. Their obsidian hearts couldn't contemplate such a possibility, such an all-consuming romantic obsessions of youth, such a fortuitous—"

Bartolome finished his tirade by dumping me by the doors of the manor, which was becoming something of a habit of his. On all fours, still blushing after Cruz was referred to as my love, I promptly vomited my breakfast. It fell next to Bartolome's impatiently tapping Crock.

S-sorry. Monsignor...why do they need me? And as long as they don't have me, does it mean that Cruz is Okay?"

"During a Fledgling's submission to his Master...or his Mistress...there is one chief use for a maiden that immediately springs to mind." He frowned and muttered something under his breath about changing times. "Pardon me for being indelicate, but you are a virgin, Señorita, are you not?"

I grabbed my temples and groaned. "If one more person asks me if I'm a virgin, I—"

"So, Corazon had asked you. Well, this leaves no doubt in my mind. Señorita, you're a ritual sacrifice to seal the covenant between a Mistress and a Fledgling."

I stared at him dumbfounded, attempting to digest what he'd just said.

If I drove to the Eternal Acres on time, my introduction to modern-day vampirism would have been short and brutal. When all I wanted was to find a nice guy to take me to prom...was it absolutely impossible in Delys?

I sniffled, wiping my face with the back of my hand. It came away soaked with tears.

"I'm sorry I had to be this blunt." Bartolome offered me a scented handkerchief. "But if you care a whit for my grandson, and understand the meaning of peril and urgency, clean yourself and follow my lead. We have staff to trick and a vampire to defeat."