Affairs progressed exactly as she wanted them, with ideas to first fatten Luca up to produce more blood, Blanco family used all kinds of precious materials and potions to nurse him back to health. For a whole month, Catherine forbid herself from hurting Luca. To assure him of her good intentions, she also bought a pet Chupacabra from vampire channels to accompany him. Chupacabra is a half-lizard, half-homunculus thirty centimeters tall, feeding on blood, six-legged, sharp-toothed, red with blue patterns, the favorite familiar of bloodkin. Luca reluctantly named it Razor and tried to pretend to like it.
Breakfast of magical animal eggs, commonly from Ashwinders as they could be bred in the manor, with a glass of Gryffin milk imported from Texas Magical Ranches. Lunch the only meal consisting of normal fruit and vegetable sandwiches. Dinner of dragon liver or other potent meat filled with magic, side a mix of potion microdoses, like a drop of Strengthening Solution, Skele-Gro, Ageing Potion, Wit-Sharpening Potion, Memory Potion, and antidotes both common and uncommon. Supper a whole vial of Blood-Replenishing Potion and expensive no-maj desserts from New York bakeries.
Luca was eating around twenty galleons a day on Catherine's insistence, she not even sure if those designed to work short-term potions could benefit Luca as she imagined. During this time she introduced extraordinary forces in the United States and her family’s situation to him. When he learned about the degree and variety of magical creatures living unnoticed beside the human population, he couldn’t believe it for days, refusing to listen to any of her lies, asking her why would she fool him like that, it isn’t that he can run away. Helpless, she asked Pablo to take him out to watch an underground arena match in Connecticut, a state widely considered the most infested by dark forces and shady characters due to its proximity to New York and northern territory prone to cloudy days.
This was a real eye-opener for him, a scene of demons dancing with witches and dragon heads harvested to a cheer of an audience. Howling unkempt-looking men, grey monstrosities, gloomy wizards in black robes, cultists hung with trinkets of incomprehensible meaning, red-skinned horned demons snuck into Earth by deceiving their summoners, native american shamans sticking together, goblins supervising the betting stand, villas much more beautiful than Luca thought possible radiating a charm to sell bottles of blood, eyeballs, and slabs of raw meat from their carts, turning into screeching harpies after-sale or if anyone tried to touch them. Circular arena with two entrances separated from an audience by pylons coated with dimeritium and a transparent barrier between them, concentric circles of rising steps where the audience stood or sat, then a flat area akin to a street with stalls and shops carved into the bedrock. Clearly, a business run efficiently and a safe haven for criminals and outcasts as accentuated by a large number of uniformed ‘human’ security patrols.
Pablo and Luca on this occasion wearing the Blanco family emblem, white tulip on a circular red background, didn’t get into any trouble besides watching a couple of games, as Catherine clearly ordered him to not wander around after showing Luca the other side of the world. Upon their return, she couldn’t resist any longer and bit the boy’s wrist gently, his complexion and stature improved greatly from that scrawny skeleton he resembled after experiencing Angelica’s drain for a year. Attentive to not overdo it, she only took a cup worth of his blood. For a week this volume sucked daily didn’t cause Luca any discomfort, during which she once again made him remember North American and Blanco’s history.
It turns out that various reasons contribute to an abundance of forces inside this territory, the main one being ‘Great Exodus’ around the year 1750 of no-maj or half-blood wizard families unable to advance in hierarchy or livelihood due to resources being occupied by pure-blood wizarding families thriving inside the new Secrecy Act, prosecuted for millennia and almost wiped out from western Europe by Vatican dark mages and cultists, vampires that can’t possibly rival pure-blood aristocracy chokehold on politics and rules of conduct among them, werewolves hunted for sport or disgust by practically everyone whether good or bad, upstarts willing to risk their lives for potential gain, crazed mages or wizards that imagined their glorious future enslaving whole towns and cities, and other creatures seeking a safe habitat in increasingly shrinking magical living space.
Blanco family late to the party had to flee Spain after the truth came to light of Catherine wantonly turning her thralls into vampires as soon as she could, even higher vampires have to overcome a period of weakness lasting months at each new member of their families welcome party. Such actions were long outlawed by the peace treaty between pure-blood families and the Church, yet she didn’t care and proceeded just because of a whim and to satisfy her vanity of being beloved. Perhaps Isabel's reasons for not stopping her were more of an ambitious kind, blood kisses of her Lady not awarded to mediocre, ugly, stupid, or poor amassed a sizeable following before emigrating in 1850. On the shores of Virginia they decided to develop in, a delegation of the newly formed Blood Council awaited with open arms. No adventurous pure vampires were willing to bother relocating since they already had everything they could want in their castles and estates, high vampires were the combat ceiling of the New World. This doesn’t exactly apply to Catherine, she long weakened to have only the speed and strength of a middle one by constant transfusion of blood to her cousin to eventually, after a whole two centuries, make her a middle-blood.
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Isabel decided to accept the invitation and relocated to New York, information on all the events, plans, and goals of the extraordinary world available since then. Blanco family participated in the Civil War, a cause of freedom appealing to the cousins more than supported by most of the dark forces and pathetic money-obsessed Scourers among wizards Confederacy. Blood Council split over the issue in half, eventually faction supporting the Union enjoyed spoils of victory in captured or surrendered subordinates of other high vampires killed or missing in battle.
Catherine didn’t accept anyone not bitten by her into the family, others frantically expanding power and searching for politicians and capitalists willing to serve them in exchange for an eternal curse of immortality. Improved by the common cause relationships between the winning side made the Church relax its vigilance for a while, and the newly established Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) occupied the attention of no-maj forces. In no time Blood Council exploded in wealth, turning most of the greedy entrepreneurs and bankers into humble thralls serving their interests.
This led to a new balance between vampires and other factions. Under the threat of economic collapse, several governments and presidents tried to challenge Blood Council's dominance in America’s underground, followed by a recession or a crash. In fact, last year’s Black Monday another point in series of a century-long struggle to gain more influence for themselves.
Learning about this, Luca’s thoughts started racing. It turns out that Granger’s household struggles are literally a fault of bloodsuckers as his father said! Negative impressions turned into hatred and Luca couldn’t wait to bring humanity’s traitors to justice, righteous fire extinguished after a look at who tells him these stories.
Catherine enjoyed seeping Luca’s blood and recalling her memories so much she started spending several hours a night with him, enduring Isabel's resentful glares as she had to sniff the perfect aroma filled with life energy jealously. After Catherine finally felt bad enough to share a sip with her cousin, scrunching her slender brows in pain she poured a thimble worth into a wineglass, thus Isabel joined the recently cleansed of unworthy club of Luca’s ‘drunks’.
To move into recent times, constant threat from vampires led to a hostile policy towards the paranormal world from the US government, bordering on open war not distinguishing the ‘good guys’ from bad guys, professional eye required to tell the differences between a mage, wizard, and warlock, vampire types who just want to live freely not harming innocents from the careerist Blood Council, etc. MACUSA exhausted in constant battles against breaches of the Secrecy Act, revived under the banner of revenge on them Scourers, werewolves entrenched in Canada joining forces with independent magical creatures living there under the banner of rebellion from International Confederation of Wizards, and pressure from no-maj to help them deal with all kinds of problems, Church varying in solutions, from Puritans shouting to cleanse the land from evil, to people like Father Roberts saving members of magical community whenever possible.
One thing is for sure, under the seemingly peaceful veneer of North America, countless lives get sacrificed to an evil god, drained from all bodily fluids, give possessions worked for by generations of their ancestors in hope of eternal life, get eaten whole by a wild pack of Chupacabras or a passing dragon escaped from a breeding ground.
None of it concerns the Blanco family under Catherine’s leisurely attitude, kicked out of New York for never attending meetings and not interested in turning people she doesn’t find worthy or interesting, she continued lying down, enjoying a change of scenery, evening banquets, operas, and concerts. Her latest bloodkiss granted to a comedian at a performance whom she laughed for hours, Isabel kept the family afloat, not offending people while keeping them somewhat known in the right circles.
As Catherine grew stronger with each day drinking Luca’s blood, she decided to train in combat alongside him. She requested Pablo to teach them Aikido, recently fascinated by its philosophy through a Japanese calligraphy meetup organized by her friends - women she turned. Pablo as a fighting maniac, seasoned swordsman, and a fan of boxing, took them to first watch Marvin Hagler's knockout of Thomas Hearns he had on VHS. Puzzled by this Catherine took out a book ‘A Beginner's Guide To Aikido’ and questioned that maybe he didn’t hear her acutely. After a dull reply that he has no idea what ‘kiddo’ is, she lost the short-lived enthusiasm and left Luca to train alone.
Boy’s training thus began in earnest, running under the moonlight to the soundtrack of all released Rocky movies playing as loud as it could from a cassette player held by strolling alongside vampire. Pablo clearly couldn’t be happier to share his passion.