After we were all updated on the current situation, Carmilla took Mom, Pandora, and Dr. Diaz aside for a private conversation while I was still sitting and relaxing with Melody, Carmen, Mallory, Jess, Lou, and Selina. Poor Selina looked like she never wanted to leave my side again and, even though there was nothing he could have realistically done even if he was there, Lou was feeling bad that he wasn’t there to help us. Of those of us who had been in the crash at the school, it was ironically Jess, Mallory, and I who seemed to have gotten off fairly lightly on the injury front.

Carmen had suffered a concussion and a dislocated shoulder that were going to take a couple of days to heal, even with the healing spells that both her mother and Ms. Norstrom had placed on her. Melody had only suffered minor injuries from the crash itself, but she had been shot four times with bullets that had Divine spells meant to kill Demons. If she had been a full Demon, or shot anywhere vital, she would have died. As it was, they had slowed down her regeneration and weakened her even after they were removed, and Dr. Diaz wanted her on bed rest and taking it easy for a couple of days so she could fully recover.

Compared to them, we had gotten off lightly. The airbags in the front seats had mostly saved me and Jess from anything worse than some bruising, minor cuts from broken glass, sore muscles, and a bit of a headache. Mallory was suffering from a minor case of whiplash, and some bumps and bruises, but also seemed to be fine other than some sore muscles.

There was maybe some minor trauma there as well from our kidnapping and short-lived captivity, but it probably wasn’t as bad as what Delilah was going through. Frankly, it could have been a lot worse if we hadn’t escaped before those assholes got to do anything more than drop off Delilah to show us what was probably in store for us all and chain us up in their little dungeon. Like I told Melody earlier, we were free now and had managed to avoid anything truly horrible, so it was probably better not to overthink it and just take the win.

We were all tired from our long day though, so it wasn’t long before we all decided to head upstairs and go to bed. I just wanted to cuddle with Melody and reassure both of us that I was safe now. I honestly didn’t think that either of us would be up for anything more than snuggling either with the shape she was in, me still suffering from my period, and everything else that had happened.

We had all just decided to call it a night and head up to our respective rooms when Carmilla approached. “Crystal, could I have a few minutes of your time before you head up to bed? I know that you have had an eventful day, but this is important, and I would greatly appreciate it,” the Night Princess asked with a tone and expression filled with motherly care.

I looked to the others and nodded before shooing them off. “Sure thing, Carmilla. Jess, could you please make sure that Melody goes to my room and straight to bed?” Before my intended could launch a protest, I turned to her and let all my love and concern for her show as I added, “Melody, please. You should be in bed; you already pushed yourself to come to our rescue when you should have been resting. I won’t be very long, and I’ll be with Carmilla, you know she wouldn’t let any harm come to me even if we weren’t safe in the club.”

Melody’s protests stopped before they passed her lips and she allowed Jess to pull her along to the elevator with everyone else, leaving me with Carmilla. “Thank you, Crystal,” the elder Vampire said as we watched the others head toward the elevator. “I made peace with Grundle while we walked the backroad here, but I would like to speak with Ashe as well. I did not want to bother any of you with it, but Sorcha is still young and of you others with Salamanders, you seem the least worse for wear at the moment. I must apologize and discuss an urgent matter with her, and I will need an interpreter.”

“Should I just call her up here then?” I asked.

“Yes, perhaps that would be best, but let’s join Sophia first so I can introduce the two of you more personally,” she replied as she gestured to a booth where the younger Vampire was seated alone, apparently waiting for us.

“You said she’s one of yours?” I asked, hoping to confirm what I heard earlier. “I got the feeling that you don’t turn many people.”

“I do not,” she agreed. “Vlad may turn anyone who catches his attention, but I am more like our Maker. I only turn those who I feel need the change and will use the great power of our race responsibly. Sophia was the most recent, and only the fourth that I have turned in all my centuries. She is like a daughter to me.”

My eyebrows both shot up at that bit of information as we walked toward the booth where Sophia waited. I had the feeling that she didn’t turn many, but only four, and Sophia was one of those? I just had to ask, “So, what made you choose her then?”

“It was the smell of death upon her that first got my attention,” she said with a faint smile. “She was dying of Cancer. She had been given six months to live and instead of spending it in a hospice or hospital, she wanted to live her final days seeking out new experiences rather than waiting for death. We met in London by chance and spent a week together doing new and exciting things together. She helped me to realize that I was not living, but merely existing before her condition took a turn for the worse and I offered to turn her.”

“I didn’t believe her, of course, at least not at first,” Sophia added with a smile as we reached the booth. “I just thought she was this cool woman who took the Goth thing really seriously since I could never get her to meet me during the day. Who would have actually believed she was a bloody Vampire? I didn’t have much to live for, honestly; no family that I was close to, few friends, I just wanted to live a little before I died, and then Mum here offered me immortality.”

Sophia had a posh-sounding British accent, and I was a little surprised that she called Carmilla that of all things. “Wait, you call her Mum?”

“Why not? My real parents died when I was little, I don’t even remember them, and she’s been more of a mother to me since she turned me than anyone at the orphanage where I grew up. We stayed together for ten years before I decided to go explore the world a bit more on my own. Worst mistake I ever made because I ended up in the Chimera Syndicate’s clutches,” the younger Vampire said with a frown before extending her hand. “I’m Sophia.”

“I’m Crystal,” I quickly responded as I shook her cold hand. She was pale with long black hair and ruby-red eyes, very attractive, but if she was one of Carmilla’s then I thought she was probably just as beautiful on the inside. “It’s nice to meet you, Sophia, I wish it were under better circumstances though.”

“Don’t we all,” she agreed with a nod. “I’m free now though, we killed my captors, and I’m reunited with Mum, so I’m trying to look at the positives.”

“She was the reason that I first came here to Edmonton,” Carmilla added. “This was the last place that she contacted me before she disappeared. I looked all over the city for her, which is when I met Pandora and Tiffani. I didn’t find out about The Caverns until they took Rhissa in and by then I’d been searching for almost a decade and feared the worst had happened.”

“The Syndicate has a lot to pay for,” Sophia agreed with an intense frown.

“And we shall make them pay,” Carmilla stated with steely determination. “Crystal, could you please call Ashe for us?”

I nodded and reached out mentally along the Salamander network until I found her familiar presence. “Ashe? Could you please come here? Carmilla would like to speak with you.”

~ It is good to have you home safe, Crystal. Carmen and Sorcha were very worried about your welfare, as was I when I could not travel to you, ~ the Salamander replied, sounding relieved. ~ I will come. ~ Now I felt kinda bad for not letting her know we were safe earlier, though I guessed that she was probably able to sense our presence (at least me and Melody) and wanted to let us have time with our other loved ones.

The Salamander appeared a moment later to affectionately rub against my cheek while hovering in the air still fully aflame, earning a raised eyebrow from Sophia, who had likely never seen one of her kind before. “Thank you, Ashe, I’m glad to see you too. You know Carmilla already, but this is her… umm… daughter, Sophia.”

“Thank you for coming, Ashe,” the elder Vampire said. “I would like to apologize. I was angry with both you and Grundle because I felt that you endangered the girls’ safety when encouraging them to bond with your children. In truth, they are all safer because of it, and Crystal and the others would not have escaped before we arrived to save them had Cinder not been with her. Please forgive me.”

~ I understand her anger, I would feel the same if I felt that anyone was endangering my children or you girls who have bonded with them. There is nothing to forgive, ~ Ashe responded softly in my mind.

Once I had passed that message on, Carmilla nodded and smiled faintly before saying. “Thank you for seeing to the girls’ future safety. I have a request, if you would hear me out.”

~ What manner of request? ~

I ‘translated’ for Carmilla, and she quickly replied. “Sophia tells me that she has been to the locations of other Chimera Syndicate cells. Not the head of the organization or any of their other important locations, but we may be able to find more information in these places and damage the Syndicate further. If we had Salamanders of our own, she could take us to these locations and we would be immune to fire, one of a Vampire’s primary weaknesses other than sunlight and Divine magic. Could you take us to the Fire Plane?”

~ I cannot, ~ the Salamander responded sadly.

Once again, I translated that for the pair and Carmilla looked at me in concern as she inquired, “Are you feeling up to that, Crystal? You have already gone through so much today.”

I considered it for a moment before giving her my reply. “If it’s one at a time, I should be able to manage it. I can’t say how long it would take to find a mother looking for hosts for her children, but time does pass faster there than here. Are the two of you going to be okay there though? You just said that fire is one of your weaknesses.”

“As long as we stay directly out of any flames, we should be fine, and it would take a lot to get past my defenses,” Carmilla quickly assured me.

I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to risk their safety like that and taking them now might just wear me out since I was already tired, despite what I had told them. I was also a little worried about their safety if I took them there. In all honesty, I had been lucky with my random travels there so far and I didn’t want to risk dropping us all in a lava pit or running into a lava Kraken or some other fire-based predator that might think we were dinner.

Then I remembered how Melody had gotten Salamandered by surprise during our first date. “Wait a minute, who says you need to go there to get Salamanders? One just popped into the Material Plane to lay one on Melody. Ashe, couldn’t you just go there, find any Salamanders with young that need hosts, and bring them here for Carmilla and Sophia? Time passes faster there, so you likely wouldn’t even be gone that long from our perspectives,” I pointed out.

Not only could she call out to her fellow Salamanders to find possible babies in need of hosts, but she knew the Fire Plane and could probably find Salamanders in need far faster than we could. If it was just her, she could leave quickly if there was any danger as well. ~ I would be willing to do that, ~ Ashe agreed.

With that decided, I wasn’t needed any longer and both Carmilla and Ashe encouraged me to go to bed and get some rest before the Salamander vanished to see about her task. I did as they asked, too tired from my long day to protest and wanting nothing more than to snuggle with Melody for a bit. It didn’t seem like I was destined to snuggle with her alone though, because Selina was waiting outside my door, dressed in her silk nightgown, when I arrived.

“Momma,” she said as I approached, “Do you think I could cuddle with you tonight?"

It wasn’t surprising with Selina’s family-related trauma. I knew that sometimes she still worried about losing her Momma and having this whole loving family thing go up in smoke. If it hadn’t been for her and Cinder, there was a very real possibility that she could have lost me today. She needed reassurance that I was still here, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Of course you can, Sweetie,” I replied. She needed me right now, and it wasn’t like anything more than snuggling was going to be going on, so what else was I going to say.

We both slipped inside my room, where we found Melody already asleep. Thank goodness, she needed her rest after today. I motioned for her to go sit quietly on the bed and then slipped inside my bathroom for a moment to change my tampon and place a pad inside my panties for good measure. Then I stripped out of all my other clothes, cast a pain relief spell on myself, put on a loose nightshirt since Selina was going to be snuggling with us, and climbed into bed. Snuggling with Melody on one side of me and my daughter on the other, it wasn’t long before I fell asleep.

The next morning, I assumed that Ashe was successful in her mission to find newly hatched Salamanders since both Carmilla and Sophia had Salamander marks on their arms. During breakfast, Carmilla announced that she would be taking the night off at the club that night. She and Sophia would be going to clean up The Caverns and destroy those Shadow Gates, and then they had some other business to take care of.

Nobody asked what that other business was. I think we all either knew or suspected that the Vampire, who considered herself our nest mother, was planning to make the Chimera Syndicate pay for everything they had done. If she and Sophia needed help, she would ask for it, but I held no doubts that she could probably do it on her own.

As for me, my sister, Melody, Carmen, and Mallory, we were taking the rest of the week off from school. Not only had we been through a lot and needed the time to recover, but our moms were all a bit pissed with the school for failing to protect us. They wanted to be sure that stronger measures were being taken to protect students of St. Michelle’s before we went back there.

Since I couldn’t work at the club while having such a heavy and painful period either, I spent most of the next few days relaxing and spending time with Melody, my sister, Selina, Sorcha, Carmen, and Mallory. We also spent some time getting to know Garnet better. As an Earth Nymph, she was one of the rare types of Nymph that wouldn’t have trouble staying in the city while she sorted her life out, but I had a feeling that both she and Sophia were going to end up staying with us permanently since Sophia and Carmilla were so close, and Garnet really had nowhere else to go.

Garnet actually had a lot in common with Risha. She grew up in foster care and had no idea what was going on when she Manifested. In her desperation for sex, she got involved with the wrong people and ended up in The Caverns, where she was later caught by the Chimera Syndicate. She had no idea how long she was their prisoner and slave, but going by the date that she remembered Manifesting, we were pretty sure that she had been there for at least eight years.

She and Sophia were both probably going to need to talk to someone professional about their long-term captivity and the things that they were forced to do during that time. I held no illusions about what else they were probably forced to do other than using their magic for the local Syndicate cell. The Syndicate and Snatchers mostly target women for a reason, and Garnet was a Nymph, so the math wasn’t hard to do. Even if Garnet did crave and enjoy sex as much as I did, being forced to do that and other things against her will and not being able to control her own body was probably traumatic.

Garnet didn’t say much about her time in captivity, but I couldn’t blame her. I had only been held captive for a matter of hours, and I wanted to just try to forget about it and try to enjoy the rest of my long life. She asked me what working at the club was like though, so me and the Dicken sisters all told her what a sweet gig it was for girls like us and let her know about all the benefits. I had a feeling she might be joining us as an entertainer soon.

Most of my injuries from the crash and our brief captivity were gone by the end of the day on Wednesday thanks to healing spells, and Mallory and Jess fared similarly. Carmen and Melody were both getting plenty of bed rest and were mostly recovered by Thursday night. By Friday we were all back at one hundred percent, though my period wasn’t quite over yet so it looked like I would be taking another night off work.

It sounded like we might be going back to school on Monday though. Mom had talked to Headmistress Collins, and it sounded like Delilah’s father had made a large donation to the school to improve security. She said there was talk of hiring the same Divine Mage who we had helped escape the Syndicate to place actual protective wards on the school grounds in addition to the spells that kept the normies from taking an interest.

The protections probably wouldn’t be as extensive as the ones Mom destroyed at the Syndicate base, but it sounded like there was serious talk about what their options were. Allowing only certain Paranormals on the grounds could be tricky, but they were looking into measures to keep people like the Syndicate, who have intent to harm or kidnap any students from just walking onto the grounds and lying in wait like the team who captured us did. I was hoping that it worked out since we were all looking forward to going back to school.

We all missed our friends from Auto Shop, having only been able to talk to them on the phone or through our Discord server. We wanted to hang out with them, and Carmen and I wanted to get back to work on our project cars. Most importantly, Jess missed her girlfriend and couldn’t wait to show Rose how good she was at shapeshifting now.

That was one of the few good things to come out of our kidnapping, and Jess was getting better with it every day. She no longer had to hide her tail and ears, wear contacts that she hated, and it was like we really were twins now. We were both looking forward to the mischief we could get into and the confusion we could cause at school now that she could properly control her shapeshifting. Hopefully, we would all be back on Monday and wouldn’t have too much schoolwork to catch up on.