Ebony was hidden in the morgue of the Eastern Regional Medical Center, North Philadelphia. She was watching the skeletal creature tear into one of the corpses there. It didn't stay for long, and turned into a mist, and seeped away.
Abu had given the group a Detect Risen Magic figurine a few days ago; it would vibrate when near anything with Risen magic. Luckily, Ebony was carrying this, and she used its vibrations to follow the mist. The mist seeped down a drain, and under the road. This allowed Ebony to track the thing from above ground, up on the road.
She texted the party, and they all soon arrived on the spot, and they all followed Ebony and her figurine.
After a few hours, at 6 am, it stopped, under a large intersection, the junction of North Fifth Street and Fairmount Avenue.
"Now we wait," Ebony said.
Thursday Sunrise 5:32 am, June 19
Sledge phoned STRIKE FORCE and updated Lieutenant Prospero. He arranged for the Police to cordon off the intersection. Detective Noble arrived to join them as well. According to her City Hall blue-prints, there was a large sewerage pumping station here; it was the confluence of several of the cities major sewer lines. The tunnels would be tall and walkable,
Thursday Morning, Late, June 19
They all went down a manhole down the street from the centre of the street to the south, armed with one air compressor, their firearms and several flashlights.
Down the tunnel, they came across a coffin, then another. Sledge couldn't help himself, and opened them both. One had a wispy haired old man, the other a healthy man in a suit.
Sledge searched them both and found wallets full of cash.
"Best let sleeping dogs lie," whispered Detective Noble.
He left the money.
They moved a bit closer to the pumping station, and came across more coffins. Some old wood, some stone, but most were normal coffins. There were 28 in all: three were stone, and seven were locked (from the inside, Ebony checked).
"But why are there no ghouls?" said Detective Noble. "Vamps never leave their coffins unprotected during the day. It doesn't make sense."
Abu's Detect Risen Magic figurine was now held by Jacob, who was upon the road standing in the middle of the intersection.
They guessed that the creature was hiding in one of the coffins, so did some triangulation, with the figurine, to try to narrow down which one.
They got it down to four coffins, so carefully opened each one: a nine year old boy, a woman, an old man, and a street thug in a hoody.
They narrowed this down further by lifting each coffin, in turn, and taking the coffin down the passage, to see if the figurine would stop vibrating. (It only had two modes: vibrating and not; at ten paces, it stopped dead.)
The lady vampire's coffin seems to be the likely candidate. They opened the lid again, and stepped back. Suddenly, she sat up ... well, she was shoved up. The creature was lying under her, and it sprang up.
Battle was met!
Everyone opened up with what they had: Sledge's twin .357 magnums, Detective Noble's police special, Mort's Glock 17, Ebony's oil. The enraged creature launched into Sledge as he blasted away, and it bashed and clawed him. Then it had a go at Ebony. It was so fast and quick, and it had to be hit in its head, that only Sledge could inflict reasonable damage on it. Noble got in a few desultory hits. Mort didn't even try. Ebony's oil was also very effective, and the creature roared and screamed, as it burned. And burned. And burned.
Finally, the creature collapsed, burning, and the group then carefully pounded the charred skeleton into powder. And then pounded the powder some more. And kept pounding it until there was no piece larger than soot.
Detective Noble had a specimen plastic bag and she swept all the dust into this. Then rinsed the sooty stain with water (from the open sewer) and kept that too.
"Now, I'll get some stakes," said Mort. "And kill all these vamps."
"No you won't," said Detective Noble. "Not all vampires are evil by definition. And we have no evidence than any of these ones are."
Mort fumed.
"And furthermore," she continued. "I think this is Oberon's claimed area. And if not, it is Defacto's area. We don't want either of them riled. So, we will put everything back to exactly how we found them."
So they carefully tidied the coffins up, and put them back to how they were.
Thursday Afternoon, June 19
"Safer to destroy this before nightfall," he mused.
Then, with police escort, they took the jar to the Sandmeyer Steel Company. There was an industrial iron furnace here. Abu tossed the canopic jar into the mix, and the party gleefully watched the jar, soot and ash be vapourized.
"Now we can say it is gone," said Abu.
Thursday Sunset 8:32 pm, June 19
Mina arrived to the apartment.
"I hear you finally did it," she said.
Nods all around.
Mina handed Sledge a briefcase.
"A token of my appreciation," she said.
Sledge opened it. It was $150,000 in small bills.
Thursday Midnight, June 19
Ebony then offered to perform with Mina in one of her nightly rituals.
Mina smiled enigmatically and nodded: "But, of course."
So Ebony undressed, and knelt with two other girls and Mina. Mina opened Ebony's neck and used her blood to paint around the circle and on the walls of the sarcophagus. Part-way through the ritual, Mina bit into her own wrist; black blood welled-up, and Mina fed it to Ebony.
Friday Sunrise 5:32 am, June 20
Mort snuck out alone, just after sunrise. He went to the intersection where they fought the mummy yesterday, and quietly slipped into the sewers. He was carrying a large bundle of stakes.
The coffins were all there, in the same positions. Mort then went methodically through each one, staking them all. He didn't open (or even touch) the seven locked coffins, but that still left twenty-one vampires destroyed. Two turned into aged partial skeletons, most into dried skeletons, and some into fresher corpses.
[ Unlike Buffy vampires, Twilight vampires and True Blood vampires, WoD vampires, when "killed", turn into the age the corpse would be, had it not become a vampire. So old ones turn into dust, and young ones into fresh corpses. ]
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