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 ’t trust this vision. All I have to do is e 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 a her strength bolster then turo face her demon. Kigatilik, the beast that kills shamans of various Native Ameri 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 maion 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 destru. 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 thuorm, the beast ged from having seven arms, to having siendrils with razor-sharp points and then to a monster shaped like a multi-headed bck dragon. Using one of its wicked dragon cws, Kigatilik reached out and grabbed Sylvie, then fpped its misty wings to unch itself into the air.

  Willing to see how the premonition pyed out, Sylvie didn’t fight the diretera with her inner demon and watched the ground speed below her. Almost as if Sylvie needed a bit of reassurahe suhat noted Casey started pying appropriate musibsp;

  -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,'Til the sandman, he es,Sleep with one eye open,Gripping your pillow tight,Exit light,Enter night,Take my hand,We're off to never-never nd…

  —

  Sylvie chuckled to herself as the music fit the situation perfectly, setting her a little more at ease. It took a few seds 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 khat the events going on around here weren’t the least bit real. She watched as the nd below her reversed from its modern sprawl, removing the asphalt of all the roads, the electrical wiring overhead disappearing and repced with the natural-looking oak trees and little footpaths that occasionally lead to a long cobblestone road going through the ter of town. It was only after she passed over the rge 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 pohe question before the dark dragon tucked its wings and dove straight for the ground. Seds ter, a field of windmills appeared along the many farms in the area, with the Swift Creek Watermill as the ter of the farmnd. Deftly nding, Sylvie felt herself get tossed to the ground and Kigatilik resumed its amorphic look.

  Pig 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 st words made her think about the euation.

  -I ’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 steltion, Cassiopeia. It was a warning to take what Kigatilik does as a possible lie.-

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

  -An refurbished everything. Even the windmills.-

  Sylvie nibbled on her lower lip with her fangs for a few seds 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 ndscape, it took a few minutes for Sylvie to realize that the windmills were in the shape of the steltion.

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

  Sylvie was vinced she was missing something important, and paced around a rge 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 lubsp; What does it all mean?-

  Once more the vision answered its mistress. Suddenly Sylvie heard the shuffling of feet and a sed ter, a group of vampires dressed in green and brown with rge silver hoods c everything but their eyes. The small troupe stepped up to the pond, ign Sylvie.

  -

  One of the vampires folded back her hood, exposi-bck hair with matg bck eyes rimmed with red. This womaurned 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 sthly six feet i and had a very muscur frame, making the woman look like a bodybuilder. “With our brother, he has filled in the gaps with our study of crystals and shown us how to gee enough power to make this ic door open.” Kinthia poio five of her followers, “We Dryod’s will ge the very nature of what it means to be a vampire. No longer a sve 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 use it for, Kintha.”

  Kintha frowned and pulled the hood away from the man who’d just questioned her authority. “Franco, I-We wele you to the dryod ranks, to learn a new way of vampirism. You were even eager enough to show holying blood to the crystals before lied pressure to them, geed 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 finally live in harmony with the rest of humanity and fet the veil. If we don’t have to bat our nature because of these beasts, aren’t we all better off?”