Sylvie

Spotting the split-level house nestled in a few trees and back from the main road, Sylvie let Casey’s hand go and shapechanged into her Bluejay form, and flapped her wings enough to lift off and get to Casey’s shoulder.  Rubbing her tiny blue feathered head on Casey’s neck, Sylvie chirped once and took off for the rooftop.

“I guess that is my signal.  Good luck babe.”  Casey crouched and crawled as close as she could to the front door and focused for a second, turning herself into a small black widow spider.  She noticed that Haley’s home had a huge bay window that had a thick set of blinds to keep the sun out at certain points of the day.  Right of the window contained the two floors where Casey assumed the bedrooms to be based on the smaller evenly placed eight-pane windows.  Crawling to and under the heavy steel door, she noted that the house was dark and like no one was home.  Skittering along the wall and up to the ceiling she turned and looked around the main room. 

-I guess Haley is a little paranoid.  Emergency shelters all over the room, like one of us is going to invade her mind.- 

Casey thought to herself as she worked her way around the circumference of the room.

-Isn’t the aluminum supposed to be on the person's head to work?-

Casey asked herself and dropped the issue since she didn’t know the details of that amount of paranoia.  Casey let herself fall to the floor and started slowly prowling for the woman of the house.

-Where are you hiding, Haley Grant?  Make this easy…-  

Casey wished to herself and made her way to the soft sofa and climbed up.

Circling the gray shingled roof for evidence of cameras, Sylvie was interrupted in her scouting by Code. “All cameras on a timed loop, recording nothing.  Cable data stream stopped.  Wireless stopped at the source and all devices set to airplane mode. Only remaining source Satellite…sat…satellite..”  Code stopped speaking and its green circle went orange, yet the blue sections pulsed quietly in Sylvie’s vision.

-Perfect.-

 Sylvie thought and quickly changed into her normal form and found the uplink cable for the dish, and severed it with one swipe of her claw.  She walked to the dish and yanked the arm free that allowed transmission, causing a small spark as it died. “That’s finished, Code. I am headed to the back door.”

Sylvie no sooner dropped the part of the dish, when she heard Casey screaming as though she was in severe pain and suffering. “NOOooo….Casey!”  Sylvie screamed, forgetting any idea of stealth and broke through the backdoor and experienced firsthand what Casey had been screaming about.  Sylvie found herself standing in a living room with emergency foil blankets lining all four walls.  Placed strategically throughout the room were heavy laser pointers that contract builders used, all aimed at a central bottle in the middle of the room causing whatever was in it to radiate green.  Complementing the room, high capability ultraviolet lights that were typically used for reptiles, had been turned on and adjusted in a way that took full advantage of the reflective wall surface.

Haley Grant stood in the center of the room and clapped with joy when Sylvie dropped to her knees on the plush tan carpet. “I think this deserves a lovely song to compliment this moment.”  She spun on her heels to see Casey with little wisps of smoke coming from her body. “That’s right, use that blood to fight it…”  She clicked a little remote control and the music Haley referred to began. “I think Katrina and the Waves fits the theme well.  Their song "Walking on Sunshine.”

“…And I just can't wait till the day when you knock on my door,
Now everytime I go for the mailbox, gotta hold myself down,
'Cause I just can't wait till you write me you're coming around,
I'm walking on sunshine, wooah
I'm walking on sunshine, woooah

Haley did spins and little jumps in the middle of the floor, bopping her head enough that her long brown hair bounced across her face, obscuring her equally brown eyes. “Yes, indeed..my two blood-sucking friends, don’t it feel good?”  She stopped the music and walked over to Sylvie and started dragging her so that she was beside Casey. “I told Amos not to come, so he sent a couple of his besties. Or is that beasties?”  Haley laughed and squatted down beside the two helpless vampires. “I took a bit of a risk, I didn’t know if this would work.”  She pointed around the room, starting with the blankets. “Those are for reflection only.  That way I could cover the entire living room.  A simple internet search on the composition of sunlight gave me two of its biggest factors.  Ultraviolet light and gamma radiation.”  She giggled and looked at her watch. “I don’t have long enough to stand here, so I will make this a little shorter.”  Haley tied her long hair into a ponytail and pointed to the UV lighting, “That is high-intensity lights used for aquariums.  Very easy to get.  Then scattered in the room in every conical direction are leveling lasers that are all aimed at the Potassium-40.”  She laughed and pushed Casey over onto her back and poked the young vampire to get her to open her eyes. “It needed a heat source, you see?  Oddly, Potassium is an isotope that is sold freely on the open market.”  She knelt and pressed a kiss into Casey’s lips, “Think about it…artificial sunlight.”  Haley stood up and took a deep breath, “The best part is it dropped you two like a stone.”  Haley started whistling and went outside the blanket barrier and deeper into her home.

Casey fumbled around and finally found Sylvie’s hand. “S-Sylvie…Sorry, I-I…”  Tears of blood flowed down her cheeks, “...I didn’t have time to say anything…this pain…”  She pulled Sylvie’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “Know that I love you, please..”  Casey sighed and closed her eyes.

-Rivers, you are one day out of being human and are laying on this floor giving up.-

More of Casey’s memories flooded her vision and saw the few times that Sylvie pulled her from certain death.

-She assisted in killing Brian, she caught you as you were about to fall down into the center of the Earth, and most recently killed two vampires in a cemetery, after riding ninety miles to rescue you.- 

Casey squeezed Sylvie’s hand without response. “Fuck.” Casey muttered and had the last flash of memory, where Casey covered Sylvie with a blanket to stop holy water from destroying her. “Thank you!  Rivers, you have a plan.”  From the moment she was reborn, the sun had been Casey’s friend.  Always warm and inviting, her eyes shone like twin suns and she had no darkness within her to tempt her from a path of her choosing. “Blood is everything.”  She summoned most of her blood and felt her body cool down and her limbs began working flawlessly. “Sweetheart, I covered you before, I am going to do it again.”  Casey summoned all the strength and speed she could and launched herself to the first wall she could see and on her way to rip down the emergency blanket, destroyed one laser and two UV lights.  bundling the crinkly blanket in her arms, she rushed back and tossed it over her partner and creator. “Come on babe, if it reflects it should shield you like that.”  Casey dashed across the room and ripped into the horrific devices to weaken the trap they’d walked into.