"Get the knife. You need it," Mother Teresa said, her voice tired.
Mother Teresa was on the balcony. The foam had turned the inside of her room into a white and green wall.
They couldn't get out through the door, blocked by the foam. Even if they could, the police had surrounded the convent. Even if she got past them, Maristela would have to hide for days and find a place called the Pigsty Hovel.
The hummingbird knife was three meters away. It had fallen near the bed, near the shattered chest, near Flavius.
Looks almost like three kilometers.
Maristela crawled. The floor was slippery — blood, foam, ash. Each movement pushed her body against the cold stone. The skin on her knees tore. She didn't feel it.
A vampire was two meters away from her, trapped in… foam.
Expanding foam. The simplest name she had ever heard for something so deadly.
Just a few more centimeters.
The knife was right there.
Crack
The first crack was a warning. Maristela didn't look back. Her eyes were fixed on the short blade, on the flower-carved handle, on the faint glow under the light of the dying Ankh.
Her fingers closed around the handle.
The second crack was a death sentence. Maristela saw a thin, black fissure climbing up the white block like an inverted lightning bolt.
She didn't wait to see the rest. She moved back, toward the balcony, toward Mother Teresa, toward the ledge.
Inside the fissure, there was no foam. There was an eye. Flavius's black eye, with a blue iris glowing in the dark, was fixed on her.
The third crack was a sign that time was up. A piece of foam broke off and fell. Inside, the darkness moved.
Flavius was already getting out.
CRACK!
A loud noise came from inside the foam. Maristela had only enough time to turn her head and see claws reaching toward her foot.
The hand came from inside the solid foam like a reverse birth — fingers too long, black nails, skin burned and already regenerating in overlapping, moist, wrong layers.
The fingers pierced through the floor exactly where her foot had been.
If I had been a second slower…
Silvo's blood burned somewhere inside her, below her chest, above her stomach, in a place she didn't know existed. It wasn't pain. Something is waking up. Faster movements. Sharper reflexes.
From inside the foam, a sound. It wasn't a scream. It was laughter. Muffled, wet, coming from a throat that shouldn't exist. Flavius was laughing.
The foam cracked around his wrists. Then his forearms. Then his elbows.
Shit. We don't have time.
They needed to get out of there. They were cornered on the balcony, watching the cocoon being broken. The only exit was the door on the other side — and all Maristela had to do was get past the murderous vampire while protecting a dying witch nun.
Easy. No big deal.
The ledge was low, barely reaching Maristela's waist. Down below, the inner courtyard — irregular stones, a broken waterwheel, silence. No bushes. No straw. A dumpster. Stone and death.
Maristela looked at Mother Teresa and saw on her face the same crazy look that had made the mother cut her own hand and put a collar on a vampire.
"You're going to jump," the mother said in a low voice, without a tremor. It wasn't a request.
"It's too high. I won't…"
"You will. You drank the vampire's blood, Maristela. You're not human anymore."
"What about you? Are you staying? Are you going to keep lying to yourself that just because I ran away, Flavius won't hurt anyone?
"You know Domingos' name, we will be safe…"
"THAT WON'T CHANGE ANYTHING, TERESA!"
It was the first time in nearly a decade she hadn't called the mother by her title.
"I'll take care of Flavius. I guarantee he won't touch anyone else."
Maristela understood.
Anyone else.
He would touch Mother Teresa. She would be the calf. The bait.
"How? How will you... come with me, dammit..."
Before she could finish, the foam exploded.
Flavius emerged, breaking the last pieces, but something was wrong. The gray skin was burned in patches — green, black, raw — and the burns were already closing, the flesh stitching itself back together, slowly, wrongly.
The suit had melted, stuck to his skin. He was like a snake shedding its own skin.
The smell was nauseating: burned skin, burned hair, paint, green smoke.
His face was half-melted, the jawbone showing through.
He smiled. Too many teeth, crooked, coming out of his mouth — like a wild boar's teeth.
"You're too good for a simple hunter. What are you doing in this shithole?"
Mother Teresa didn't answer. Her good hand moved.
The crooked crucifix on the floor — the Ankh — glowed. Not yellow. Red. Blood red.
A barrier of red light rose between them and Flavius. It wasn't a wall. It was a thin, translucent membrane, like a glass blade that turned everything reddish.
Everything around Mother Teresa looked redder.
Flavius took a step. The barrier stopped him. He pushed. The membrane gave way — and he entered.
Small flames erupted from his body and hands — smaller than before.
"Let's make a deal," he murmured, black eyes fixed on Mother Teresa.
"The girl gives me the coins, you start working for me, and I will protect this place and everyone in it."
Mother Teresa pushed Maristela toward the edge of the balcony, keeping her as far from Flavius as possible. Maristela felt the mother's broken arm brush against her.
"I'd rather die than betray the Hummingbird. Take one more step, parasite. I'll send your ashes to Domingos along with what's left of your filthy suit."
Flavius laughed. His body burned slowly — small, constant flames.
Beneath the laughter, Maristela saw the pain on his face. His body trembled. As if he were forcing himself not to run away.
He didn't run. He took a step forward and fully entered the red barrier.
"I killed Silvo, so I wouldn't have to destroy this convent. But you, Teresa, I will enjoy tearing out your heart and watching it stop beating."
He pushed again. The barrier bowed inward. White flames sprang from the membrane, licking Flavius's arms, burning the flesh that struggled to regenerate.
Cornered. No way out.
Flavius was four meters away, on fire. Each step was a challenge; the flames intensified the closer he came.
A battle of attrition. It seemed like they were losing.
He didn't scream. He just frowned.
The crucifix flickered and went out. Stopped glowing.
Maristela noticed. Mother Teresa noticed. Only Flavius felt the flames disappear.
"Your faith is running out, witch."