their tears consisted of blood. Martha and Jane waddled over to the women and comforted them. As idiotic and horribly dressed as the old gals were, the wrinkled dummies were kind.
The gentleman who wanted to be a bat raised his hand again. “I remember a little,” he said with a shudder.
“Can you tell me?” I asked, walking over to where he sat, squatting down and taking his hand in mine. “It’s very important for me to know so I can stop this from happening to others.”
He nodded and paled. “It was a woman. I was blindfolded. I saw her so briefly, I can’t tell you much other than she was short in stature. She promised money to my charity—unheard-of money. I run a nonprofit for hunger. It was such a welcome and intriguing offer. Could have made a real difference to a lot of people in need.”
“How much?” I asked.
“One million,” he replied, horribly embarrassed. “I should have known it was too good to be true.”
“Lizard, can you take notes for me, please?”
“Sure thing,” he replied, producing a pen and notebook out of thin air.
“What’s your name?” I asked Bat Man.
“It’s Adam. Adam Fest,” he replied.
I giggled. I couldn’t help it.
“Is that funny?” he inquired, perplexed.
“A little,” I admitted. “In my head, I’ve been calling you Bat Man and your name is Adam Fest—kind of similar to the original actor, Adam West.”
He chuckled and patted my hand. “I rather like Bat Man. I shall go with it.”
I could tell I was going to like Bat Man a lot. “Lizard, mark down a million dollars owed to Bat Man’s charity.”
“Done,” he replied, grinning and smacking on his gum.
The others had been promised money for their charities as well. It was truly horrifying. They’d been called to a meeting, attacked, blindfolded, tied up and brutally turned into Zombies. The false pretenses made the crime even uglier.
“What’s the damage?” I asked Lizard after I’d worked my way through the entire group.
“Fifteen million total,” Lizard said. “Who’s gonna pay for this?”
“I am,” I replied. “It’s the very least I can do.”
Anastasia handed a still sleeping Sarah to Levi and walked to my side. Taking my hand in hers, she squeezed it. “You are gorgeous inside and out… even covered in guts,” she said with a smile, then turned to the new Vamps. “I understand how you were lured into the trap, but Sarah is a five-year-old child. Does anyone know how she got caught up in this?”
“The woman said that the child was in honor of the Choosy One. Said it would destroy her,” Bat Man shared, confused by what he’d overheard.
“You mean the Chosen One?” I ground out, trying my best not to scare Bat Man.
“Possibly,” Bat Man said. “Actually, yes. It was Chosen not Choosy.”
My blood chilled and my fingers began to spark. Sarah had been harmed to hurt me. Who in their right mind would do this?
“Can anyone tell me what the woman looked like? Was she alone? A name perhaps?” Anastasia asked as I paced off my need to detonate the state of California.
“No name,” a gal named Sharon said. “She was alone, and it all happened so fast this morning, I didn’t get a look at her. I’m so sorry.”
“No,” I said forcefully, still pacing. “Do not be sorry. None of this is your fault.”
“I know,” a small voice from behind me said. “I saw her.”
I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to my brother, who held the reincarnated child version of my Nana in his arms. It was surreal.
“Tell me, Sarah,” Levi said, rocking her gently. “Tell me what the woman looked like.”
“Brown hair,” she said, touching her head just in case Levi didn’t know where hair was supposed to go.
He grinned and continued to rock her. “And her eyes?”
“These?” Sarah asked, pointing to her own.
“Yep, those,” Levi confirmed.
“Green. Green eyes.”
Anastasia began to growl. I grabbed her arm so she didn’t scare the newbies. And we still needed a little more info from Sarah. “Calm down,” I told my sister-in-law, which was ironic, considering my fingers were still sparking and my arms were covered in black magical glitter. “That description could be anyone. You think you know who she’s talking about?”
“I might,” she ground out and pulled herself together. Walking over to Levi and Sarah, Anastasia gently stroked the child’s hair. The three of them made a beautiful picture. “Sarah, did this woman have any marks on her face? Like a pink line someone might have drawn?”
I