We still need man-things!

Chapter Ten

And there she came—a giant lady dressed in white like a ghost. With a clear plan to murder him on the spot, she arrived at the attic with her crimson wine glass to fill it directly from his jugular.

"It's time to come out, little rat!" She shouted after placing an oil lamp on the hook on one of the rafters. "I won't hurt you if you do it now."

She approached the large cardboard box she thought was Mike's hiding place and turned it over, only to find the same junk she had found in her previous search.

"Hmm, he must be somewhere else. Where? In these sacks?"

"No. But the food, as I see it, is really gone! So, one thing is clear: This maid didn't lie! Hey! Where are you, Mike? There is no point in hiding anymore!"

Having seen empty dishes and a missing letter, the evil countess was now 100 percent certain that her prisoner was still in her house.

"Okay, if you don't come out, then I will turn the entire house upside down!" She shouted again. "All this old crap here, piece by piece, I will turn over!"

Alcina hated that she had to start looking inside all of the old furniture, boxes, and bags that had been thrown in here during her unusually long life. But her thirst for blood was so great that she just couldn't stop anymore.

Where could this rat be? The longer it takes to find him, the longer the torture! And I'm not kidding! If he tastes good, then I take him right to my distillery! He will be bottled, and Mother Miranda may go to hell with her orders to keep him alive!

She didn't think yet that Mike could be in the ballroom, but after searching through almost half of her old stuff and crushing various items with her massive legs, she understood that this could be the real case.

Of course, Ingrid took him to that chimney. How stupid of me!

The crawlspace that went further from this attic was too small for Lady Dimitrescu to fit through, but unfortunately, she had another way if she really wanted to go there.

A long time ago, likely in the early 1960s, when this ballroom was in use, it was accessed through the opera hall. When Alcina took over the castle and decided that her family didn't need that place, she let her maids seal it off from the rest of the house with brickwork. But now, having discovered that her prey was possibly using this place to hide, she had nothing against slamming herself through the bricks again to have another dance that could potentially end with her stomach full of fresh young blood.

"Mike, do you think I can't reach you there?" She shouted through the crawlspace. "I am coming through the wall, and you will pay for what you have done. Do you hear this?"

Alcina boiled over with excitement over that kind of manhunt. Before starting her demolition work, she loaded a lot of heavy objects in front of the crawlspace to block Mike's way out from there. Dressers, nightstands, boxes full of old books, and even an old marble sink as heavy as a tractor wheel were things she used to make sure that his living bloodbag would be drained today.

Then she headed quickly to the opera room and ripped down the green wallpaper covering the area between two wooden pillars. With her fists in strong leather gloves, she punched through the plywood covering and pulled the whole sheet of it away from the old wooden door frame.

"Mother, what are you doing?" Bela appeared from a swarm of flies after hearing all that resulting noise.

"Stay back, darling!" Alcina ordered. "I'm going to get your sister's toy hiding in there."

There was crude brickwork behind that sheet of plywood. That looked strong, but actually it was laid with clay, making it quite easy to demolish.

Alcina lifted her dress a little and then landed a mule-force kick on the masonry.