“Fine!” Casey still gred at Sylvie, clearly upset. “I am far from being calm Taini, a little fug help. You know since you love doing it s-” Casey flopped harmlessly on the bed and fortably spread out with a little purr. “Now this is calm..” Casey waved both her hands in the air like little snakes, mesmerized by the way she was curving them. “I am going to make you pay for this ter…mmm…” Casey blew Sylvie a kiss, but wasn’t quite sure it was her…yet didn’t really care. “Kody…they were saying some…mmhumm, about the bloodstone…”

  A quice over to Casey to ehat her progeny was satisfied and mostly unaware, Sylvie watched as Kody’s metallic legs rushed the vampire bato the ter of the parking lot and stood catatonic. “You made it, very good. Noill take care of that monster in a few.” Sylvie took one more look at Casey, who was still pying with her hands, then back through Kody’s video image. “What about the bloodstone and the lot? Kody stop talking like a puter and mae, I want to hear my friend again.”

  Doily as told, Kody’s body reverted back to their flesh form and they promptly fell to the ground. “Oh, Sylvie…” Kody groaned. “I apparently have kinks to work out in that defense system. It’s like I was in ghost form, I am nearly drained and my robotic arm doesn’t work.” Suddenly Kody felt himself stop thinking about all of the other issues that had been floating in their jumbled mind. “Okay, Yes. I remember what I wao say. Let me send the information…” Kody uploaded what they’d derived and while still on all fours and unwilling to move, finally answered the question. “It’s the hematite. It's metal and for all purposes for us, it is iron. It is usually found in roation and not a fine powder like we’ve used from the bloodstone. Currently this lot has roughly a twenty pert tration of powdered hematite and the shadewraiths don’t want to try.”

  Kody leaned up on his knees and spotted the one huge shadewraith. “I have a theory, but I ’t prove it without hitting the thing with the dust.” Kody’s eyes went red as though they were thinking and after a couple of seds resumed their blue-gray appearaheory is that much like the disease called hemoatosis, the hematite is what kills them. Oversaturation of the metal for the blood doesn't seem to affect vampires, but given they are ghosts derived from blood and anguish it makes sehat they’d suffer the effects.”

  Hearing the expnation drone on, Sylvie stopped Kody while they were in the middle of mild side effects on the human body. “Kody, Kody. Stop.” Sylvie took a deep breath and shook her head after everythi silent for a couple of seds. “Thank you.” With Casey on her mind, Sylvie looked over and saw her progeny lift her thumb in the air with a smile. “You are too much, Miss Rivers.” She then turned back to the video that had stopped moving. “Kody. You mentioned your blood levels were dangerously low.”

  “Yes, Sylvie.” Kody sent their automated sensory blood level to Sylvie’s tacts. “It is one of my chip-to-blood designs that I created at-” Kody went silent as Sylvie spoke.

  Unwilling to get into another long-winded discussion, Sylvie proposed the solution to their blood dilemma. “I am sure that there are people nearby that you get blood frht?”

  “Yes, Sylvie there are.” Kody answered with the same ft tone in their voice. “Before you called I ted quite a few that went ihe food-mart just after the EMP pulse.” Before Sylvie could say more, Kody added, “I am not quite sure what happened, I thought I had two hours of cyberic time, something in my calust be incorrect-”

  A shrumble bined with an impatient huff, Sylvie interrupted Kody once again. “Kody. Kody…Cassiopeia’s stars, focus. It doesn’t matter what it was inteo do, it matters what it is.” Sylvie gzed over to Casey who’d begun ughing. “You think this is funny, Casey?” Sylvie asked, still a tounoyed.

  “Yep. It's fu great. You get to sit there and py robot-mommy and I get to sit here and be giddy.” Casey wiggled her eyebrows and turned over on her side, “Let me know when the party's over..or you know, stop making me feel great.”

  It was the little jaunt into the fun with Casey that settled Sylvie down enough to focus on Kody. “Kody, dear. Go into that little market and feed. I mean take all the blood you without any remorse, you hardly stand.”

  “Franmm..” With a tiny wobble, Kody stood up and began walking toward the entrance of the little shop. “...oo much from any one person, we should live as one.” Lost with the echoes of his fallen master aor boung in his mind, Kody grabbed for the door and stopped. “Sylvie, I haven’t always been able to stop myself. Just after Vivienne, after Franco died…” They yahe door off its hinges, “I took out aire diner, not sure if it was me or my inner demon.”

  Finally hearing something akin to being a vampire slip from Kody’s lips, Sylvie took a breath so she could speak and then wi Casey. “Kody. I know how much Franeant to both of us and we really didn’t get to discuss it before you took off.” Sylvie waved her hand and Casey sat up with a pout on her lips. “If I suffer, you suffer along with me sunshine-slut.”

  “HEY!” Casey gleefully screamed and stared at Sylvie, the look on her facredulous. “I am not a slut…” Casey sent the and to her tacts so she could watch the events unfolding, “...well not a slut, anymore.”

  Resisting the urge to burst out ughing, Sylvie mao turn back to Kody just as the vampire had drawn attention to themself with the removal of the door. “My dear friend…” Sylvie offered with a magisterial uone, “...You are a vampire, you really o e to that fabsp; You have to hunt, you are a predator…at least when you hunger.” Sylvie blew a kiss to Casey and then tinued, “If you o kill, then you do. If you don’t then that is acceptable as well.” Sylvie softened, “Either way, humanity is our means to our pate. We have no other choid weren’t built to.” Holding up a fio Casey, Sylvie kept doing her best to get Kody past the incessant need of Franco’s teag that harmony is the best policy. “Kody, you wit. Harmony weakened Franco, Weakened Livia. We were collectively surprised by the Ripped, unprepared to deal with humanity that knew of our existence…” Sylvie ged her tone and became anding again. “Put away that guilt, it will not bother you again. If you are hungry then you feed. Period. Now feed, and take care of those shadewraiths as you have suggested.” Sylvie trated on the tacts and mao mute the little lenses and her pho the same time. “Casey, you shouldn’t look so fused, You already know this stuff. I told you the first night, enforced it with the sughter at the apartments, so why are you looking at me like that?”