Sylvie

“Odd.”  The last member of Sanguine Spark, named Kerry pondered. “The timing is strange to say the least, Master.”

Ray stood up and walked over and handed Jason the phone. “Agreed, plus it’s daylight.  Curious what she is playing.”

Pressing the little light pad to activate the speaker, Jason answered. “Hello, Sylvie.  Calling to sett….Oh, Miss Rivers..what can…”  He listened to Casey frantically speaking.

“Sylvie is right here having an ongoing vision, Jester.”  Casey huffed through the speaker. “You and your troupe need to get the fuck out of there, right now.  She’s saying you might have five minutes before they descend on you.”  Casey finished issuing her dire warning.

Raising one of his thick brown eyebrows and smiling at his other vampires, Jason took a breath so he could speak. “Miss Rivers, what do you mean by ‘they’?  No one is fool enough to come here.”  He cleared his throat and reached for a bottle of blood that had been supplied by Twilight Tonight. “Furthermore, where am I supposed to go?  The sun just came up, darlin’.”

Snickering like a couple of college frat boys, the other two vampires grabbed their own bottle of blood and used their fangs to jerk the cork out.  Ray spoke first, “If you think this warning makes us square with what you did to Oscar and Owen, you are mistaken.”

Holding up his hand and shaking his head silently, ‘No’, Jester repeated his question. “What exactly am I facing, Miss Rivers?”

“They are called Shadewraiths, Jester.”  Casey resumed her quick tone. “Unless you have bloodstone on hand, there is nothing you can really do to stop them.  Sylvie and I can explain more later.”

Jester heard Casey place her hand over the receiver of her phone and mumble something back to Sylvie. “Your little warning does nothing to assist, if I only have minutes.”  Jason snickered, “Where the hell do I get bloodstones?  I run a tattoo parlor.”  Jason then took the phone off speaker and talked directly to Casey. “Okay, let’s assume for a second that I believe what you are telling me.  What am I facing?”  Jester rolled his eyes at his fellow vampires and sighed as Casey explained what the Shadewraiths were and what they could do. “So while you called to warn me, this blabbering has cut down my survival time.  Lovely warning system.”  Jester looked at his two companions as they started laughing. “Miss Rivers, thanks for the update.  We will figure something out.  Let me try and prepare for this onslaught.”  Jason pressed the ‘end’ button and tossed his phone on the desk.

“Well?”  Kerry asked while rubbing his bald head. “Tell us what they are.”

Ray and Kerry listened intently as Jason paced back and forth in the office explaining what he’d quickly learned from Casey about the beasts. 

“So…so…these things are living embodiment's of our fucking dark-demon?”  Kerry jumped up and balled up his fist. “Mine is already hard for me to deal with, I can’t imagine fighting the one inside me and one attacking me.  Teases me all the time that the blood I consume will turn on me, boil me from the inside.”  Kerry shivered and looked at Ray. “Fuck this, I say we hide.”

Ray stood up as well, and started shaking uncontrollably. “Guys, mine is laughing at me…right now.  It’s counting backwards from three-hundred and sixty, one second at a time.”

Quickly looking at his Swiss-made watch, Jason frowned. “That is six minutes.  Assuming that it isn’t lying to you, Ray.”  He rubbed his chin a few times and pointed to Kerry. “You said hide?  Where…I assume you have some idea.”  Jason picked up his phone and waited for an answer.

“The whole town is like four hundred years old, there has to be some tunneling that could get us out of here.”  Kerry grabbed the crate of bottled blood and pointed downstairs to the basement where their excess supplies were stored. “There has to be a sewer that runs under the building, we just head down there.”

Taking a few seconds to think the situation through, Jason pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.  He knew that the two others would only act if he gave permission.  The key would be covering their tracks until they stumbled into bloodstone. “I’ll call the others and tell them to stay away from the parlor, hopefully these ‘Shadewhatevers’ don’t know every member of the troupe.”  Jester nodded and pointed to the basement door. “Let’s try it your way.  If nothing else we can punch through the foundation and dig down.”

Extending his claws, Ray followed Kerry down the stairs. “It’s all we have, Jester.  I hate that we are hiding like rats.”

“Thank god we don’t have to breathe this foul shit, Jason.”  Kerry announced when found where the drain pipes for the building were. “Time to be a mole.  We just follow the pipe to the junction and that should lead to the bigger line.”

Laughing as he sent out texts to his wards about the shadewraiths, and that they needed to find as many bloodstones as they could from spiritual shops that dealt with stones.  He looked up from the screen. “How about you two dig and I will just follow along.  I have no wish to put my hands in that .. shit..and that’s official.”

When the command clamped in their mind, the two young vampires groaned and started digging just as they were told to do. “Lazy prick.  Why do I even try to like you?”  Ray chuckled and shoved Kerry. “At this point your bald head will shine and give away our position.”

“Shut up and dig, like I am being forced to, asshat.”  Kerry grumbled as Jester's order kept him on task. “Somehow this isn’t fair.  It was my idea, funny guy.”  Kerry muttered as the dirt flew behind them faster than a bulldozer could move earth.

“Hey, now you know why I am called Jester.”  Jason punched in the final part of his text telling his wards to meet in his home just on the outskirts of Williamsburg. “Know what is damned funny, guys?  The whole town is covered in black and white ghost poles, and the local carnival is Halloween-themed.”

Ray stopped his forward progress and looked behind them. “You know, we should cover the entrance we made, just in case.”  He started to go back through the tunnel when Jester stopped him.

“Ray, no.”  He showed him the time, its been over six minutes.  If they are coming they are already in the parlor.  We need to go faster.”

Kerry huffed as he kept digging at an angle, trying desperately to find a way to break through the earth. “Then get your ass up here and we do this as a team.  Three is better than two.”

Since the reasoning was sound, and Jester wanted to get to his home and plan for the next stage of his day, he caught up to Ray and Kerry and began digging alongside them. “You can’t tell anyone that I did this.”  Jason summoned some of his blood and quadrupled their pace.

Another five minutes passed and the three-man crew reached a solid concrete wall.  Kerry looked at his friends. “I love it when I am right.”  He punched the stone and made a very large hole, and exposed the dark and dank running water. “I’ll go first.” Kicking off his heavy leather boots, Kerry extended the claws from his feet and hands.  Crawling out on all fours, Kerry bounded to the roof of the open sewer system, scouting roughly a half mile in a few seconds.  Once he returned, Kerry poked his head back through the hole from above. “Looks clear as a bell.  We crawl on the roof and there’s no chance of getting shit on.”  He laughed.

Jester reached up and pushed Kerry back by his head and crawled out on the wall. “Next time I will put my ass in your face, baldy.”  Jester laughed. “Okay, Ray-gun, come on out.”