Seconds ticked away as Sylvie reached the top of the hill without any hindrance from the shadewraiths that harmlessly passed over causing her to recoil out of habit. “I’ll never get used to them, babe.” Sylvie commented as she maneuvered the bulky contraption to the ring. Instantly thankful that she and Casey had filled the reservoir with their combined blood before they departed, Sylvie took herself out of the weird moment and depressed the plunger.
-No matter what, time is going to finish this.-
Sensing that after the tiny quip, Sylvie suspected that Casey was close to responding to her concern about the shadewraiths.
“Don’t.” Casey looked around and kept touching her chest. “Sylvie, something is about to happen..I feel..”
Without enough of a warning to do anything, Sylvie had just set the brace over the portal when she sensed the air around the portal shift and became as poisonous as the feeling of radiation coursing through her supernatural blood. With a quick turn of the lock dial, Sylvie heard the magnets cmp to the ring. “She’s here isn’t she?” Sylvie stood up and faced Archaios Enas, who looked just as hateful as ever.
“Sorry, Tai-” Casey cut herself off and knew that sorrow would only feed the monster in front of her. Casey had faced demons before, overcame them and came out better every time. Determined to make this encounter equally fruitful, Casey stepped beside Sylvie and witnessed the slow and methodical movement of her foe.
Exactly like the corruption that Sylvie felt, Archaios Enas approached her portal. Whatever life was left in the burned soil turned into gray matter and transferred into the white-specter. Typically floating and above her enemies, Enas approached using two bone-white feet and a set of vile spidery and wispy legs. “To the st, blood shell.” Enas offered without any remorse, her words still filled to the brim with hate. “The flesh-shell got away, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll hunt her down soon enough.” Red-diamond shaped eyes reflected deep within Enas’s bck sockets. Slowly the beast stopped advancing and allowed the couple to see her marblesque form shining in the sliver of moonlight overhead, without any hint of peace or tranquility always associated with the color white. A tiny skull sat dead center of her cloudy shawl like a trophy brooch. If not for the presence of her chaos, then her red lips would fool an onlooker that she was ready to kiss or be kissed..not out of love, but to perish. Her long matching hair hung in the air like there was an unheavenly wind keeping it afloat. “You have eluded me, blood-shells.” Enas gnced up and knew it was close to midnight. “All Hallows Eve. Now then, blood-shells…” Enas pointed to the other four vampires still standing in the retive safety of the Mill’s parking lot littered with bloodstone. “Let us embrace as foretold.”
Unsure of the prophecy the white-wraith was discussing, Sylvie stepped in front of Casey and prepared to use the same tactic that she’d done with the shadewraith when getting the journal and book back. “Casey, get the machine star-” Sylvie felt her body shake for a split second and she was suddenly paralyzed. Dropping to her knees, Sylvie’s vision began to fade as she took note of the horrific sound that radiated from Enas.
Just as Archaios Enas promised, her embrace echoed throughout and visibly gripped the six vampires tightly and watched the chaos she’d created with her supersonic wail. “Yes. Struggle, feed me.” Forgoing the use of her feet, Archaios Enas rose from the ground as though the spirit of Halloween had possessed her. Quietly chuckling to herself, Enas spread her spindly form into many directions and enveloped a few vampires where they’d fallen from the trees and turned back into their normal form. “Come to me my beloved, let us both feel you break free and enjoy the blood-shell’s suffering.” As though on command, a shadewraith burst out of one helpless vampire with a mind-shattering wail and instantly turned into a small bck ball of chaos which then flew into its creator. “Oh, I am saving you tasty morsels for st. You see blood-shells, the longer you fight, the stronger I get.”
Surrounded by an unending twilight darkness that her vampiric vision couldn’t compensate for, Sylvie stood and overlooked a barren ndscape. Unlike the vision that she’d had before, there were not any burning buildings or dead innocents ying on the ground. No trace of modern technology melted into the ground and no sembnce of ashen remains of a modern society. All that spilled before her eyes was an empty ground with discarded and broken items of old and new battles. Ancient helms poked their horsehair from spots of gray, spotted with old rustic dried blood. Bronze sword pieces protruded from the battlefield like metallic grass that hadn’t been tended. Scanning her way in a small circle, Sylvie made out the shapes of older siege engines and things that were once considered stone. She walked to a small rotting chariot that had what she knew as hieroglyphics and took in a sharp, useless breath. It was only after she’d picked up a broken oak arrow with a shaved shale arrowhead that the elder vampire knew where she’d been sent.
Memories of an old and long-forgotten tribe came into Sylvie’s view, the entire popuce sitting around a rge fire, the mothers in garments of cured fish scales to give off the image of stars in the moonlight. Equally separated into groups of five, every group of mothers stood in Cassiopeia’s shape and had a smaller section of the tribe huddled around them acting as the silent night around each twinkling light. Warriors stood at the edges of the woods, using the thick pines as cover should the need arise. Dressed in a full-length eagle feather headdress, the eldest chief emerged peacefully from his dwelling with a handful of other elder warriors accompanying him. Moving with the slow steady beat of the drums that echoed in the background, the big man took position on a wooden dais close to the fire, yet faced the rest of his tribe.
“A full moon and the great mother’s sparkling eyes have graced us and given rise to the one night where the spirit of our people can be seen in the licks of fme. Breathe in her scent, let your mind wander with our spirits and one will guide you as I speak.” A murmur among the group and a hollow whistle from wooden wind chimes was the cue that the great elder needed to continue. “Honor and horror meet together in this yer of the world. It is a pce of lifelessness. It is a pce of great deeds. A pce of vile and deplorable acts.” He waved his hand and gray dust caught the fmes and sent sparks of red and white through the air like a blood rain. It was when the little particles faded into the grassnd, that the chief continued. “Look now, let the great battlefield open to your spiritual eye. It adapts, it knows and pns for the battles that we have fought or will fight. We might see the blood on the trees and in the grass, but the lifeless gray is where the actual battle is fought.”
