With the idea of ‘stronger Luca produces more blood’, the boy’s life was full of sweat and food for the next five months. From dusk till dawn training outside, day spent inside made his skin go porcelain white, stretching his baby fat into sharper features. Growth of a whole 7 centimeters made him almost 1,5 meters high, declaring victory for Catherine’s strategy of feeding him Ageing Potion and various parts of dragons every day, his physical development accelerated by at least four times, making a ten-an-a-half-years-old boy look like a twelve years old one.
Razor The Chupacabra his only thing close to a real companion, even if it tried to bite him more often than a family of vampires he shared a roof with, at least in a small part alleviated his apathy caused by following the routine set by his captors. Daydreaming in bed about going back to his old life, playing, chatting, and learning something simple, without danger or effort became his only escape.
While all the vampires, especially Pablo, talked to him a lot and treated him well, it didn’t make much sense for Luca to make effort befriending or pleasing people that ultimately think of him as a pig, who might kill him any second. Desire to survive like a puppet forsaken by the world he knew because of his power waning a bit with each thought about it. What would Buffy say if she knew he was a wizard? Probably call the police to lock him up or something, he thought pessimistically. Learning about the government and God himself being hostile to freaks like him really did a number on his mind, not being able to see the sun for months couldn’t be a positive thing either.
All this time, Catherine and Isabel were preoccupied with examining changes Luca’s blood eventually shared equally between them made. Week after week, they both were fascinated by the feeling of living again lingering longer and longer with each sip of his miraculous ichor. From a couple beats of a long dead heart to an hour, two hours, and now almost six hours. Isabel just advanced into a high vampire, girls to celebrate drank straight from Luca’s veins with him sitting like a doll, emotionlessly sandwiched between them, Razor not daring to make trouble in presence of vampires curled up on his lap.
Excited Catherine proposed the unthinkable, to try to put their hands outside for the sun to shine on them. Isabel couldn’t make up her mind, she sat there dazed in thought as the night passed, memories of girls playing together at Blanco family gardens rewinded thousands of times passed yet again before her eyes.
“It’s dawn.” whispered Catherine holding and stroking Luca’s arm absent-mindedly for hours.
“Go.” losing her usual poker face Isabel stood up with an exhale, her expression changing from hopeful to worried in seconds interval.
“I will do it, I’m stronger and drank more.” Catherine decisively took the lead. Luca's curiosity aroused by their experiment and to witness the supposed miraculous effects of his blood himself followed suit. Walking slowly step by step, not to ruin her hopes for another minute, Catherine arrived before the manor’s door. Taking a deep breath, she motioned for Isabel to move aside where the sun won’t reach, she cracked the door open. A trembling hand reached for the ray of sunlight.
Sun kissed her elegant, painted black nails, then the soft and slender fingers. Increasingly incredulous eyes of both women watched intently, no reaction for a minute emboldened Isabel to come and grab Catherine's hand, now both of them fully exposed. Feeling the warmth with flushed faces, they hyperventilated to overcome dozens of entwining emotions. Catherine slowly opened the door illuminating her pale aristocratic face. Closing her eyes, she once again could feel like a little girl instead of a monster.
Isabel felt something wet on her cheeks, a quick swipe of her hand leaving it moist with a transparent water stain, confirmed it: she was capable of shedding tears again. She couldn’t help it and pulled her Lady’s hand to hug and cry together, Luca watching the whole spectacle with his brows raised and head tilted.
Cousins stayed like that for some time, just as Luca thought to go out himself, they separated and Catherine pulled Isabel’s hand while laughing to run outside. Beautiful rising sun in early March, cloudless sky harbinger of coming spring, had the privilege of peering into Blanco’s manor to see two delicate women running around all over the place, their smiles and voices brighter than itself.
Tired Luca sat down and swept his sight over the greenery he had only seen unclearly under the starlight. Alleys of hedge mazes, high-quality stone benches like the one under him, fenced fields prepared to sow flowers or decorative grasses in them, sculpted fountains, peacocks and pink cranes walking proudly around, gardeners working hard trying to avoid his sight. Amazingly for Luca, absolutely nothing indicated Blanco’s manor to be a den of vampires or to have a magical farm in the back.
“Killer hood.” sighing like that he laid down with an arm under his head, Razor thrown down to seek shade himself as a nocturnal creature, it started digging the bench’s legs for shelter. In a better mood now, winter he spent shivering and running in the freezing cold melting away under the sunlight, he fell asleep.
Woken up by shrill screams of pain, he tumbled off the bench to see Catherine and Isabel dash inside the manor barefooted and smoking. Wait, I have a chance now, he suddenly thought to break for it, his improved body capable of climbing through the walls and maybe racing far enough to not be found by the delayed pursuit of vampires. Heaven and earth fight inside his brain ended in defeat, I have nowhere to go, at least here I can eat some good stuff, he concluded depressedly satisfied with the chef hired by Catherine grilling, spicing up, and general taste of mostly carnivorous diet full of magical-power-containing ingredients.
After picking up his useless pet, he walked slowly to the salon they always use. There, two mutilated corpses collapsed on the sofa were slowly healing their burns, bones visible in places that caught most sunlight like their hands they used to protect overhead reduced to a skeleton.
“You idiot! Why not remember that there is a time limit?!” Catherine healed faster and immediately blamed her good sister for the misfortune, Isabel not yet capable of speech, pervasive sunlight having damaged even their vocal cords, stared at her angrily. Guilty, she shifted focus to Luca’s approach.
“Come here, let her have a bite. We could turn to ash out there if further away from home.” she ordered him and poured her grievances with a frightened expression. Unlucky, thought Luca giving his wrist to Isabel. She healed in a flash after a sip, a scene of flesh growing out of thin air pretty astonishing to watch.
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“How many times I reminded you, but no, you have to roll around this and that patch of Satan’s forsaken dirt.” wasting no time Isabel tore at her cousin, punching her arm repeatedly in fake anger, but still with a smile frozen on her lips from their playtime, inside she considered pain to be completely worth it, feeling so energetic and happy first time since forever.
“No way, Roman vampires have it too good. It’s all thanks to Luca, is your family from Italy or something?” Roman vampires famously capable of walking in the daylight with a minor issue of sparkling like a pile of diamonds made Catherine for the first time question why Luca’s blood is so special, previously she didn’t put much thought into it.
“Yeah, my mother. She can’t be a vampire though, and neither my grandpas.” not willing to believe such outrageous assumptions, he denied it.
“Hm…” Catherine decided to send people to investigate Luca’s background regardless. From the high importance placed on him before by the cousins of Blanco family, now they both couldn’t imagine his absence. Hungry eyes on him, Luca’s hair rose sensing danger.
“You sleep with me, also it won’t be needed anymore, right?” she smiled seductively and took out a key unlocking Luca’s collar, with gentle, deliberate movements she opened it locking eyes with the boy. Runes imprinted onto his soul receded back to the surface of dimeritium staying on his neck for half a year, sense of liberation made him moan in pleasure. Reestablished connection with his magic felt more acutely than before made him aware of how much it has grown, at least doubling in size. This made his head go for a spin on the same topic as last hour Another chance… Maybe I don’t know any spells, but that vortex almost catching them off-guard proved that I don’t need them to do what I want, some things can backfire for unknown reasons, risky… Slight changes in his ruby-clear eyes and his tensing body yet again betrayed his thoughts for Catherine to read like a book.
“Nobody will hurt you here.” she hugged his head to her bosom and whispered, not very convincing for Luca as they drank his blood multiple times in just the last quarter of a day.
“We will teach you magic, there are still a lot of books flowing on the black market from killed or poor wizards. And no need to train every day.” perhaps she realized that her words not quite ringing true, Catherine increased the bargain to keep him from using magic, even if her recovery and massive progress towards advancing to a pure vampire made her sure to stop and save Luca’s life in case of an outbreak. Boy’s body relaxed gradually, yet a second time he succumbed to a routine instead of choosing the adventurous option.
Catherine led him to move his clothes and miscellaneous items to her room, then exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster and pain, she hugged him from the back and went to sleep among the red pillows. Luca couldn’t fall asleep, rethinking his decisions for a long time, disappointed and hating himself a bit because of obvious weakness and conformity they revealed.
The next night she ordered to take care of sending people to Europe and buying a wand. Isabel worried that Luca runs away, now disgusted with an idea to drink inferior blood, found in a book named ‘Blessings Of The Horned Saviour’ and proposed to execute a ritual to plant a slavery seal inside the boy’s heart. Hearing about effects and requirements, Catherine agreed after prudent deliberation, no event possible to take Luca from them if this method was used. Receiving three fresh hearts in three special preservative jars the same night, girls spilled a bull’s blood into a pentagram. Comatose Luca unwittingly fed a sleeping potion placed at the center, simple white candles at two corners of the pentagram, hearts occupying the other three. Lightly tapping her brows with a finger previously dipped inside a tiny container of Souldust, creation of Hell that purifies souls into the last specks of their power, Catherine started chanting.
“Molech bear witness!” at this point she cut her finger to paint a circle on the left side of Luca’s chest.
“Sacrifice of three forge a bond between master and servant!” another circle drawn encasing the previous.
“Owner omniscient and omnipotent towards his property!” last stroke still a circle slightly larger than the last one, accompanied by a sound of shattering glass. Hearts still bleeding encased in jars fell onto the pentagram, in the blink of an eye absorbed into it. Lines shrunk from the corners traveled under Luca’s body, then strangely disappeared. Circles drawn on his body flashed a brighter red and wriggled under his skin, Catherine could feel a link that allowed her to position the boy at any time, or by breaking it stop his heartbeat.
As Luca woke up, Isabel played the bad cop and explained the effects of his new ‘tattoo’, Catherine sweetened the matter by giving him a wand and ‘Chadwick’s Charms: Volume 1’ to practice spellcasting. Regret to not start running in any direction at first opportunity welled up inside him, unable to do anything about it now, he started reading. Maybe by becoming stronger he could find a way to magically unlock this curse.
“Wingardium Leviosa!” he shouted a couple of days later under the watchful eyes of Pablo left in the mansion, Blanco women busy enjoying their daily outings to a restaurant or to play on the beach, a taste of food after four hundred years just as stimulating as walking in bright daylight. This was accomplished by drinking Luca’s blood from a flask in sips every hour, they never missed a minute of daylight to loiter outside giggling while spending money.
Nothing happened to the wand or a vase he pointed at, Luca left wondering what went wrong. Short seconds later, he tried again, consciousness plunged into the connection between his mind and soul trying to extract magic within himself.
“Wingardium Leviosa!” concentrated, Luca could feel a surge of magic flowing into his wand. Things went smoothly to this point, so they had to go south. His wand emitted a weird pop sound, followed by cracking of wood all over, fragments sadly falling to form a wand-shaped hill on the carpet. Pablo warned by the girls, ready for some spectacular failure and the necessity of saving his disciple, felt underwhelmed.
For the next half a year, Luca’s time was much more relaxed, girls took him out every third day to accompany them in shopping for clothes or other activities they had to forsake. They were eager to return to society, amazed by bustle of the day and new entertainment options, like a game arcade and mobile circus.
Inquiries from Blanco thralls into Luca’s family brought no noteworthy development, besides confirming the current location of Granger grandparents, outskirts of Paris. Catherine shared the findings with Luca at his birthday party, along with a Blasteroids arcade machine plugged into the manor for him and Pablo to play.
Progress in magic stuck after breaking all the wands found by Isabel lying on the shelves of the extraordinary side of Boston’s Walmart, girls didn’t agree for him to try casting wandless until his focus and control improves. Catherine taught him meditation and philosophy, Isabel brought a lot of wizarding world books, none of them had a situation like his described. Luca didn’t like to read them, as his inability to use even the simplest charms turned his mood down like plunging from a cliff whenever magic was mentioned.