W\\CKED

The Story of a Boy and His End

[Jul]

"Juliet? Can you speak?"

My father looked into my eyes. We were standing in the lobby of Blythe headquarters, along with Sanny and Griffin.

My lips parted, but nothing came out.

Griffin swore in Welsh. "There's multiple layers of wards between her and that blood-sucking bastard. How can he still have power over her?"

"Did you say wards?" Sanny asked. "As in magical spells that witches cast?"

Everyone ignored her.

"If she's still mute in a place as well protected as here, it's likely due to emotional trauma." Dad held out my phone, the one I gave to Nameless at the dance. "Will you type something for me? I need to be certain you're not in a trance."

I typed: Sorry. 

I handed the phone back to him.

My father looked relieved, and then nodded at the receptionist. She slid back a panel on her desk to reveal a hidden keypad and tapped out a password. 

The wall to our left shuddered. I glanced at the mural painted on its surface, a pastoral setting with brightly colored leaves. The leaves split right down the middle as the wall parted to reveal a steel door I'd never seen before, even though I visited this lobby countless times over the years. 

Dad stepped up to the door and identified himself verbally. The door slid open. As a group, we entered a large elevator.

Blythe HQ was located in an unassuming two-story building without a basement, so it was a surprise when the elevator took us down. I wasn't sure how many levels we passed before we stopped—there were no buttons or lights indicating floor numbers—but we must have been deep underground when we exited into a square room.

I found myself stunned by the beauty of several tapestries that hung on the walls, and shocked by their content:

A man impaled on a burning pike, his arm reaching out in a plea for mercy from a row of executioners. The insignia of Blythe was woven into their robes. The man's mouth, slightly parted, revealed a thin white sliver behind his lips: a fang.

Knights astride horses, dragging behind them decapitated bodies, the heads of their victims strung across their horses' flanks like ribbons. The insignia of Blythe was inlaid on the hilts of their swords.

A girl as young as myself lay limp in the arms of a red-haired woman of sublime beauty. The woman's hand rested under the curve of the girl's exposed breast as her lips pressed against her victim's collar bone, a thread of blood sliding down the girl's bare skin. A cross lay on the floor by the victim's hand, the tip of it sharp as a dagger, the insignia of Blythe etched into its center.

It had never meant much to me, that insignia. It was a bow notched with two arrows—one white as bone and the other red as flame. But now I saw it was a statement of Blythe's true purpose: arrows could be driven through a vampire's heart like a stake.

As the vampire in the tapestry drank deeply of her victim's abundant life, she failed to notice the saintly figure who stood behind her, pointing a crossbow at the monster's back, a pair of wooden arrows, one tip white and one tip red, loaded and ready to mete out swift punishment for the defilement of life itself. What that merciless judge failed to notice was the young maiden's fingers curled tenderly in the vampire's hair, as if she felt no regret for what was being done to her.

"Puro fuckiando." Sanny took in the room with awe. She turned to my father. "All these years, you snarked at me for practicing vodou while you were out skewering the eternal undead?"