Sylvie

Emerging from the trees where she’d parked her Indian, Sylvie handed Casey a couple of thick branches with points she’d whittled in a few seconds. “These.  With luck we won’t have to fight long, and can run.”  She pointed towards a little grove of trees. “Just about a football field into that woodline is an old farm that is on this trail.  The farm used to be an egg and milk farm, long since abandoned.  The trail goes around it and shows life back then.”  She shrugged and twirled the stake in her hand. “Let’s see if the area is just as popular as before.”  Sylvie started walking towards the grove of trees when Casey pulled on her hand. “What is it?”  Sylvie looked perplexed as her eyes shifted to half-full moons.

“Let’s not just walk in, let's change to birds or something.”  Casey nearly begged. “Get high up and get a bird’s eye view.”

Grabbing her girlfriend tightly, Sylvie hugged Casey and kissed her neck. “Casey…”  She paused, “...They will be flying too.  Scouts.”  Sylvie cupped one of Casey’s cheeks, “ If we are seen up there, we can’t do anything, we’d be unable to fight.  At least like this we have a chance to stab a few and run.  The challenge will be getting to the motorcycle and have it started before they catch up.”

“Bypassing key lock for engine start.” Code spoke up and flashed the schematics for the bike in Sylvie’s vision. “Rerouting sequence complete.  Engine is capable of remote start.  Querry?”

Casey snickered, “You have to appreciate Kody at this point, my little blueberry-tart.”  Casey smiled as her mood improved.  Casey offered her hand once more and trailed behind Sylvie as she pulled her quietly through the woods. “Why did you say yellow-red eyes, Sylvie?”  Casey inquired as she gripped her stake tightly in her other hand.

“Most of the time we don’t think about it.”  Sylvie whispered. “We usually don’t think about it, but we always see the yellow.  The red is, as you know, hunger.”  Sylvie looked behind her and had an errant thought. “Remember the last time I pulled you through the woods?”

Casey pondered the concept of yellow eyes for a second and blinked, confused. “Um…I don’t see your eyes as yellow ever.”  Casey felt her heart jump thinking about Sylvie’s soft moon-glowing eyes staring into her. “I…I…”  Casey heard the last question and nodded slowly. “I do.  You were all dressed like a soldier..I loved your eyes even then.”  Casey focused beyond the moons and caught the yellow Sylvie mentioned briefly. “Oh!  I saw the yellow.”  Casey purred, “I recall something about me being the only human and becoming a snack.”

Chuckling lightly at the older memory, The couple of vampires doused their melancholy mood and made their way to the edge of the woods, where the old farm stood.  Eerily covering the lush grass where blood fed the ground, a fog swirled and shifted almost as if it were magically controlled.  Quiet darkness was slowly replaced by unnatural crow calls, and matched by eagle screeching.  Where the trees had been still due to the windless night, the tops began shaking and crackling as though being strained and would topple over.

Sylvie crouched and hid behind a particularly thick oak, then pointed up to the sky.  Unwilling to speak, Sylvie just frantically pointed at the flying objects for Casey to see.

A large flock of crows dove from above and caught the small band of eagles off guard, at least three crows to every eagle.  The impact of the birds hitting each other and hitting the ground was as though the sound barrier had been broken, and left indentations in the ground where the groups landed. Seconds later the crows seamlessly turned into a flurry of fangs and claws, tearing at the eagle that was forced back into its own vampire form.  Three to one, the dark-haired vampires held tightly to the one light-colored vampire and pulled out a few modified syringes the size of a turkey baster and plunged it into the holes their claws made, exsanguinating their captive until the one disappeared in a cloud of dust.  Covering the battlefield, both sides managed to capture blood as they won sections of the ground.  

Cat calls from both sides of the field came out loud enough so that Casey and Sylvie covered their ears.  Moments later a flurry of crossbow bolts flew in all directions, with about ten hitting the tree that kept Sylvie and Casey safe.  The vampires caught in the open were hit in the legs and arms, seemingly paralyzed by the arrows, even though they didn’t all hit them in the chest.  What scouts were left, scrambled for the protection of the trees and howled in rage. 

As though on que, the cat calls calmed down and the ground started to shake from Sylvie’s left side. “Casey, I don’t recall it being like this when Amos brought me.  The blood stealing is new to me.”  Sylvie turned and laid flat against the tree, “Vampire blood stealing, this is pretty bad.”  She looked at Casey. “The cartels have to be using it to empower and get the younger vampires addicted.”

Huddling close as she could to Sylvie, Casey reached up and pulled a bolt from a tree and sniffed it. “Coated in vampire blood?”  Casey tossed the vile arrow to the ground. “Maybe they know how to change their blood like I do, or one does?”

“Making it lethal to vampires?”  Sylvie peeked from behind her tree and watched what occurred next.  Groups of two or three vampires covered in what appeared to be body armor made of Kevlar and link chains sprinted into the field with large SCUBA-like tanks on their backs.  Plastic tubing had been affixed to the backside of their arms.  With a clear view of the battle, Sylvie sat frozen with what happened next.  Once the squads reached the wounded and crawling vampires, they stabbed them with stakes in the chest.  Immobile and unable to fight back, the black squad members pulled a single bolt from the wounded vampire and then pressed a button on their wrist.  A hydraulic hiss echoed through the woods and a long metal needle punched into the hole that the arrow had made.  While one member of the squad turned on the pump the other two members squatted and held off the enemy ‘drainers’ the best they could.  While a few of the squads made it back with full tanks, a majority of them died right there on the field, their bodies turning to dust and mixing with the fog.  Sylvie and Casey heard one of the leaders close to them. “Grab the damned tanks!  Send another four squads, covering fire and let’s see where we are on blood before we press the attack.  Come on get out there, we could take the other bank and ravage the suburbs.  Push on!”

Casey rolled back to the safety of the large oak tree, and closed her eyes. “Sylvie we need to get the fuck out of here, these little sticks won’t do a fucking thing against those metal darts.  If the arrows are poison to us, we will be part of that fog.”  Spotting that Sylvie hadn’t moved from her spot, Casey pulled her mistress back to the cover of the tree and shook the vampiress. “Sylvie, we need to get the fuck out of here, babe.”

Her eyes cycled slowly through to the black irises of new moons before Sylvie nodded, “Last time I saw this, they were only slaughtering each other and occasionally leaving the wounded for the sun to get.  I was not aware they were blood farming.”  She put her hands in her face and cried lightly. “Why..why Casey…why doesn’t Vivienne stop this horror?  She could end the fighting in one evening.”

Unwilling to sit around any longer to witness more gore, Casey picked up Sylvie and began running through the woods back where they’d come from. “Code, If you can hear me…please please, start the engine.”