Sylvie

Sylvie got no answer like normal, but an icy breeze bellowed over her and caused the mossy grass under her feet to freeze.

-So it is you, demon.  At least I know I can’t trust this vision.  All I have to do is come out of the trance.-

Sylvie took a few steps away from where she sensed her darkness and began looking for an anomaly that would wake her from the ongoing vision.  Without warning, Sylvie felt her body get a flood of nourishment in the form of her partner’s blood.

-Casey?  You’re feeding me?-

Sylvie smiled and felt her strength bolster then turned to face her demon. Kigatilik, the beast that kills shamans of various Native American tribes. 

-Seemed fitting you beast.-

Uttering the word beast, Sylvie felt the starry darkness fade and Casey’s glow made the eclipse that Sylvie wanted just moments ago.  Empowered by the bond with Casey, Sylvie finally saw the manifestation of her inky darkness.  Perilous and malevolent, the pair of diamond eyes bore hate and chaos directly into the elder vampire.

-You’ll have to do better than that, Kigatilik.  Your eyes don’t bother me.-

Recalling that she’d seen the pair of eyes in a prior vision, Sylvie tilted her head and looked beyond the white glowing orbs of destruction.  Aided by her bond with Casey, her beast’s form seemed to suddenly outline in a bright yellow, showing off its amorphous form.  Cloudlike and shifting like a thunderstorm, the beast changed from having seven arms, to having sinewy tendrils with razor-sharp points and then to a monster shaped like a multi-headed black dragon. Using one of its wicked dragon claws, Kigatilik reached out and grabbed Sylvie, then flapped its misty wings to launch itself into the air.

Willing to see how the premonition played out, Sylvie didn’t fight the direct interaction with her inner demon and watched the ground speed below her.  Almost as if Sylvie needed a bit of reassurance, the sunbeam that noted Casey started playing appropriate music. 

-Funny, love-beam.  Metallica, Enter Sandman?-

Almost as if Casey were answering her directly, a few lines of the song danced in Sylvie’s head.

—

…Keep you free from sin,

—

Sylvie chuckled to herself as the music fit the situation perfectly, setting her a little more at ease.  It took a few seconds to realize that her speed had increased dramatically.  Beating its disgusting smokey wings faster, Sylvie realized that her beast was going at unbelievable speeds and time itself appeared to be reversing, sending them both into the past.

Sylvie knew that the events going on around here weren’t the least bit real.  She watched as the land below her reversed from its modern sprawl, removing the asphalt of all the roads, the electrical wiring overhead disappearing and replaced with the natural-looking oak trees and little footpaths that occasionally lead to a long cobblestone road going through the center of town.  It was only after she passed over the large creek she knew as Swift Creek, that Sylvie knew where she was.

-Has it really been about one hundred and sixty years?-

Sylvie barely had the time to ponder the question before the dark dragon tucked its wings and dove straight for the ground.  Seconds later, a field of windmills appeared along the many farms in the area, with the Swift Creek Watermill as the center of the farmland.  Deftly landing, Sylvie felt herself get tossed to the ground and Kigatilik resumed its amorphic look. 

Picking herself up from the ground and wiping her clothes free of the dirt due to the impact, Sylvie raised one of her eyebrows. “You had to drop me like that?  I guess so, there isn’t anything good about you.”  She snorted, “If I could get rid of you I would.”  Uttering the last words made her think about the entire situation. 

-I can’t trust anything Kigatilik does.  That is why I didn’t see an eclipse until she was ready to see the creature for what it was, along with the constellation, Cassiopeia.  It was a warning to take what Kigatilik does as a possible lie.- 

She quickly made the connection with her prior dream vision with the newer-looking windmills. 

-Alan refurbished everything.  Even the windmills.-

Sylvie nibbled on her lower lip with her fangs for a few seconds then snapped her fingers, putting together more of the puzzle.

-The new windmills are for energy not milling, but the watermill is still operational.-

Turning her head to visualize the landscape, it took a few minutes for Sylvie to realize that the windmills were in the shape of the constellation.

-Just like the Pyramids reflect Orion, These are a dedication to Cassiopeia.  Why?-

Sylvie was convinced she was missing something important, and paced around a large pond that served to water the farms.  It took a few minutes before Sylvie noticed that the pond water shimmied with a silvery essence along with looking overly blue.  What she believed were simply irrigation markers, turned out to be metal rods in the same shape as the stars for Cassiopeia. 

-Dumb luck.  What does it all mean?-

Once more the vision answered its mistress.  Suddenly Sylvie heard the shuffling of feet and a second later, a group of vampires dressed in green and brown with large silver hoods covering everything but their eyes.  The small troupe stepped up to the pond, ignoring Sylvie.

-

One of the vampires folded back her hood, exposing jet-black hair with matching black eyes rimmed with red.  This woman then turned and faced the group she had been leading. “Today we fulfill our destiny.  Years of work and study of blood magic mixed with nature to develop the means to our freedom.” 

The others of the troupe raised their hands and affirmed, “Here, Here!  Hail Kinthia!”

Kinthia Hatterson stood roughly six feet in height and had a very muscular frame, making the woman look like a bodybuilder.  “With our newest brother, he has filled in the gaps with our study of crystals and shown us how to generate enough power to make this cosmic door open.”  Kinthia pointed to five of her followers, “We Dryod’s will change the very nature of what it means to be a vampire.  No longer a slave to the demons that are within us.”  She paused. “Lock the crystals to the poles.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”  A slight Israeli voice warned. “We have only an idea of what lies beyond this liquid.  It took us years to gather enough mercury to make the pond.  Surely we have other things that we can use it for, Kintha.”

Kintha frowned and pulled the hood away from the man who’d just questioned her authority. “Franco, I-We welcome you to the dryod ranks, to learn a new way of vampirism.  You were even eager enough to show how applying blood to the crystals before we applied pressure to them, generated immense energy.”  Kintha grabbed the elder vampire by his arm and had him stand over the pool of water. “Think of the souls we are saving within our society.  Vampires without a demon, for all time? We can finally live in harmony with the rest of humanity and forget the veil.  If we don’t have to combat our nature because of these beasts, aren’t we all better off?”