Ch. 25

They stumbled down the hall with Rosemary in the lead. Every corner they turned, every staircase, they were happier. It looked like they would make it without meeting anyone. Susan and Michael were smiling. But that all changed when they saw, or what seemed to be, the janitor.

It was a man with black hair and a cap on. He was holding a mop and whistling a tune. But when he turned around, they saw him for what he really was.

A vampire.

Rosemary stopped and the others ran into her. While they were getting up, the vampire walked over to them. He had purple eyes and, literally, white skin. His face was thin and his nose was long. The black hair was cropped down to an inch above his shoulders. He was smiling.

“So, Bloodrose, we finally meet. I’ve heard much about you. I guess I should just get to the point and tell you that I work for your grandparents. I’m James, by the way. James Redcell. Too bad our friendship won’t grow, because I’m going to kill you all. Yes, yes, they still have to find the spell. But they feel they are very close,” the vampire told her, almost a whisper, for only Rosemary to hear, in a cold voice.

Rosemary smiled. “Well, they would be even closer if I was alive, now wouldn’t they. And besides. What would Veripema say if you killed her human prey that she has been so longing to drink. I don’t think she would like you very much, would she? And you don’t want that. Trust me.”

This scared him. He hadn’t thought about Veripema and what she would do to him much. He had taken out a dagger while Rosemary was talking, but at the thought of her aunt it sank back into his skin and was replaced by a hand.

“You four go back into that hallway. I’ll take care of this,” Bodoleck said to the others. They walked back into the hallway and waited.

A few moments later, they heard screaming. Someone screaming for they’re life. They heard something like a knife cutting through a body. The screaming suddenly stopped. Carefully, they walked back into the other hallway, and were suprised by what they saw.

“I didn’t bother to make it clean. We don’t have the time. Come on. Let’s go,” Bodoleck told them, looking at their astonished faces. The walls were splattered with blood, and James had been cut up into numerous pieces, a large pool of black blood underneath him.

“What’s your weapon - thing?” Michael asked Bodoleck once they were on the first floor.

“An ax. Nothing special. I haven’t done anything to improve it at all. I try not to use it, but I might want to start trying harder. But we have to go. As in now,” Bodoleck replied.

Rosemary looked suspicious. She asked, “What did you do with the body?”

Bodoleck, looking guilty, replied, “I ate it.”

Susan stopped and screamed, “You what?!”

“I ate it. I had to. What else would I do with the body? Hide it? No way. It was the only option I had. And don’t scream so loud. Someone will hear you. Rosemary, you know how to use the cleaning spell. Use it, and let’s go,” Bodoleck ordered. Rosemary obeyed her order and stopped Susan from tackling Bodoleck.

They ran down the hall and out a side door from the building. Once they were outside, they all stopped. Rosemary took out her newly-healed wings and picked up Michael. There weren’t any people outside yet in that area, so she didn’t have to worry.

“We’ll meet you in Brno. Take care of yourselves!” Rosemary called as she took off.

“You too! Fly safely!” Susan called back. Soon she, Bodoleck, and Medeleck were little specks as Rosemary flew away.

After a little while, Michael commented, “How can you be flying so fast? It’s like we’re going ten times faster than before!”

“That’s because we are flying ten times faster. Fourteen and seventy-one hundredths faster to be exact. We’ll meet the fairies in ten minutes. Maybe even less,” Rosemary told him. He looked at her gratefully. Even if he had to fly on her back all the time, that didn’t mean that he liked it all that much.

Like Rosemary said, they saw the little miniature huts in ten minutes. In a few more minutes, they saw a fairy-sized castle. Rosemary stopped on a branch in front of it and waited for the guards to come.

“Who goes there?” one guard. He had white blond hair like the rest of the fairies, and his eyes were green. His voice was extremely squeaky. Michael was barely able to understand it.

“I am Bloodrose, princess of the vampires. I must speak with Lala. Immediately. It’s urgent,” Rosemary quickly replied. She didn’t want to waste any time.

The second guard, who was an exact replica of the first one, huffed and said coldly, “We don’t like vampires in our village. You aren’t welcome here, princess or not.”

Before Rosemary could get agitated enough to retort, an even higher, squeakier voice from inside the castle told the guards, “Let her pass. She is a friend of mine. She isn’t to be feared.”

The two guards reluctantly stepped out of the way to the entrance of the castle. Michael looked at it and asked Rosemary, “How are we going to fit in that thing?”

Rosemary laughed and replied, “I know a spell that will shrink us down to size. It’s really easy. So easy, you might even be able to cast it. But I’m not taking my chances.”

“Of course you know a spell for it. You always know a spell for everything. Why am I not suprised,” Michael muttered darkly. Rosemary laughed even harder.

“Come on. I’d better get going. Knirhs ot yriaf ezis!” Rosemary cast. There was still a hint of laughter in her voice.

The moment the spell was cast, the more Michael wished he had never known that Rosemary was a vampire, or at least wished that she couldn’t cast spells. Shrinking wasn’t comfortable. Your skin felt like it was disappearing when it shrunk away to fit the new size of your body. He was only four inches tall by the time he was done shrinking, and Rosemary just a little bit shorter.

“If you thought that felt weird, just wait until we change back,” Rosemary told him. He groaned, and Rosemary laughed until she saw a small fairy, definitely smaller than all the others, with long hair and off-white eyes. Then she bowed and poked Michael in the ribs to tell him to bow, too.

“Rosemary, it’s so good to see you again,” the small fairy said.

Rosemary straightened up and went over to hug the fairy saying, “Lala. How I missed you. We have much to catch up on, but I really have to go soon. My grandparents are at their evil schemes again, and I need some sleeping powder. The stuff I normally use won’t work on them, and I need time to give them the stronger stuff that I got from my mother’s lake. Oh, and this is Michael, my human.”

Michael flinched. He didn’t like being called ‘my’ anything, and especially not ‘my human.’ But he didn’t say anything as Lala came up and hugged him too. He looked questioningly over to Rosemary, were she laughed again and told him, “This is Lala, the fairy queen. She’s been like a mother to me, and like a better mother to Susan than the one she already has. Lala, I have to meet Susan and the Brothers in Brno, so we really do have to hurry.”

“Right. This will only take a few seconds. Oh, if only we could have longer to talk! But you have to promise me to come back, okay? I want to know everything,” Lala told Rosemary. Lala whispered something to a man in uniform - probably a soldier working as a guard in a time of peace - and he ran off and came back with a large bag of a midnight-blue colored powder in a white bag.

Rosemary quickly grabbed the bag and put the strings around her wrist. She turned back to Lala and told her, “I’m terribly sorry for the short visit, but we really have to go. I promise I’ll come back here once this is over. Good-bye! Worg ot lamron ezis!” She picked up Michael and took off so fast that he didn’t even know that he had changed back. They could see Brno in fifteen minutes, and he was still wondering what had happened before they left.

But he soon forgot about all of it.