The Blood Rose Lady
Chapter Thirty Seven

Leonardo had vowed to know if Nyra's new pet was his Rosette or not. But he didn't manage to know the answer for years, decades, or perhaps centuries he didn't know as he lost track of time. Leonardo tried to search for his Rosette, letting the oceans of time and seas of sorrow just pass by. If only he could pour all his power so that he may locate his Rosette in a snap of a finger, he shall do it.

But his sister, the Heathen Queen Rhella, forbade him and wouldn't teach him that secret magic.

So, he manually and physically looked for his Rosette everytime the sun rose and the moon awoke.

"Let's have our supper at Ezra's Diner, Leo!" The voice of his mortal friend who was driving the cab was the one who drifted him back to the present time.

He looked at the mirror of the driver's seat and gave his friend a tight nod. His friend smiled back.

After a couple of minutes or hours-Leonardo doesn't know-his friend had muttered that they'd arrived.

"You go first and replace us a seat. I'll check the car's engine for a few minutes."

So, Leonardo was strolling towards the diner. He briefly looked at the night sky-the time in which the dark and malevolent forces are the strongest.

He was about to look for a seat when, in a corner of his eye, he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The woman who once bears his last name and had vanished like a bubble popping on thin air in the middle of the night. Rosette. His Rosette. His beloved, his bestfriend, his soulmate.

Rosette was dining a few feet from where he was standing. With his heathen senses, he could smell she was eating a grilled steak-his favorite, her favorite.

He wasn't sure if he was dreaming. He looked around, scanning for his sister Rhella as she was the only one powerful enough to cast an illusion that can evade his magical defenses.

But there was no Rhella. There was only his Rosette.

His eyes widened when the woman lifted her face. Gods below, she was indeed his Rosette. Her eyes, her sweet lips, her lustrous hair. She was his beloved Rosette.

Leonardo tried to walk slowly towards her, savouring each moment for this epic reunion. Damn, if she was really the real Rosette, he would feast on her inside and fucked her harder than he had before.

Yet, in a blink of his eye, the face of Rosette vanished. It wasn't his Rosette. It was another woman who looked similarly like her.

He wished he didn't blink.

"I'm sorry. I thought you're someone else, Miss." That was all he could say. Leonardo didn't know if it was because of hunger or alcohol or because of the effect of a weed that caused him to see things. He can't decipher the cause. So, he walked away. He walked away as fast as his feet could manage to walk.

His friend, who just finished checking his car's engine, waved a hand to him and frowned.

"What? You didn't replace any seat? Or perhaps one of your exes was there?" His mortal friend teased.

"No. It was full. It's already the exact time for supper. There are so many people dining by this hour," he plainly replied. His eyes were still looking to where he briefly saw his Rosette.

His friend looked at his wristwatch. "You're right! It's six already. How about we dine at that restaurant?" He was pointing to the Italian restaurant just across the street.

"Sure," Leonardo answered. His eyes didn't avert from the diner. His friend noticed that.

"Have seen a beautiful chick in there?"

Leonardo gave his friend a saccharine smile. "Yes."

His friend patted him on the back. "Darn! If only I knew your weakness is a beautiful woman, perhaps I'll wed my daughter to you!" Devon, the cabdriver and his friend, amusingly said.

He just smiled, not sweetly but not also the one that reached his eyes. "Lead the way to the restaurant, Devon."

The two dine at the Italian restaurant. They talked and ate, drank and told stories to one another.

Yet, even when they've already paid their bill, Leonardo didn't so much as tear his gaze away to the diner. It was the very place that he had once seen his Rosette-whether it was a figment of his imagination or a splinter of reality, he didn't know.

But, at least, his mind and his eyes have never forgotten the woman he considered as the only being that made him realize and felt what love is-Rosette Evalin Richards.

***

This was a jackpot.

Anaztasia and Avril managed to capture this horrendous Death Summoner outside the borders of Shamrock, in an isolated forest that she'd only managed to step foot in today.

She watched as her lover, Avril Arke, tore the black clothes that this person was wearing.

She gasped they gaped. The man was such a young and beautiful lad.

Yet, his eyes were the one that made Anaztasia flinch for a second. It was red. Not red-rimmed, but utterly red. It was the eyes that made her realize that this young lad had no 'mortal life' left. He was under an unbreakable evil bewitchment that can only be cast by a Blood Witch, by a heathen.

"Tell us your name, lad," Avril asked.

The young lad just smirked; even spit at the foot of Avril.

Sweat was flowing down from his face. The enraged Avril grabbed his copper-colored hair and asked again.

"What is your freaking name?"

"What is it in my name that you are so eager to know?"

"So that we'll know who you were before you become like this." It was Anaztasia who answered.

The man snorted, amusement danced in his eyes.

"I am who I am, Miss Anaztasia Amanda Arryn."

Avril Archer Arke slapped the man so hard that Anaztasia thought his head would tumble on the ground. "Okay, Mr. John Doe. Since you refused to tell us your name, we'll call you by that fucking anonymous name." He just stared. Anaztasia swore that a hint of fear flashed in the lad's eyes.

"Who sent you here?"

Staring was the only thing the man managed to do.

"Who is the Blood Mistress?" The man's eyes were just fixed onto a nearby tree-blank and no hint of anything.

Avril whipped his head to where the man's eyes were focused. A red-cloaked figure was seen running away. He ran for it when he noticed a thing by the tree that was maybe been purposely dropped by that creature.

It was a doll. A doll that looks exactly like Mr. John Doe. Avril looked at the direction to where the red-cloaked figure ran to but there was only a midnight mist. No hint of that red-cloaked person.

He looked at the doll again and noticed a needle was stabbed into the place that was marked X-into the doll's heart.

Avril ran back to Anaztasia and handed the doll. He checked the pulse by his neck and by his heart.

"Honey, you're an Empath. What's he feeling right now?"

Anaztasia paused on examining the doll and touched the man by his wrist.

"I don't feel anything. It was just blank and...nothing."

Avril put both his hands at his own hips. "He's dead."

"How?" Anaztasia's questioning and confused eyes were wide.

"That doll. I think it belonged to a Blood Witch. Someone was watching over us."

She looked at the lifeless man's wrist again. "No. Someone was watching over him, over them."

Avril arched his brows in a question.

"Look," Anaztasia continued. "This tattoo. It's a Celtic symbol. It seems that before they were turned from a mere mortal to a Death Summoner, they were marked by the Heathens in order to control them and at the same time silenced them in desperate times...such as this."

"Desperate times?" He queried again.

"Times when the heathens needed to kill one of them in order to protect their secret-their brethren."

"Silencing the escaped lambs."

Anaztasia nodded.

There was silence for a few minutes. Both are just staring at the Death Summoner who slowly turned into a mortal again. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Truly the phrase, 'You shall return where you came from' applies to this man. Anaztasia also wonders if that applies to them-to the vampires and werewolves who walk the modern earth.

Avril lifted the man to give him proper burial. They surely know that this man had no choice to be a Death Summoner-whether his family was held at gunpoint or his on the brink of dying, they were forced to side and become a minion to those damned Blood Witches, to those sinful Heathens.

The man dropped something as Avril hoisted him. It was a piece of paper. No, not just a piece of paper. It was a note, a darn hidden note clenched in his fist.

Anaztasia picked it up. It was a note, the recipient unknown.

Avril noticed him and halted. "What is it?"

"To the vampire or werewolf who picked this up..." Anaztasia started to read.

He dropped the body gently and inched closer to her. "Continue," Avril commanded.

"The Blood Mistress and her mother are just in the vicinity of Shamrock for years."

Both are stunned. They looked at each other in incredulity; Avril waved a hand to read further.

"And they are planning to raise an army of Death Summoners to purge vampires and werewolves and..." She paused, gasping for breath. "And?"

"And rule this pitiful waste of a world."