Blood red love by Dripping Creativity
109

The clan gathered in the big conference room early in the morning. Everything was ready. They walked up on the stage and looked at each other. This was it, it was the moment when they found out how many of the other vampires would join them. Vidar's parents were the first to arrive together with Mauritius and Britta. At least someone joined them, Charlie thought. Then the door opened and another clan joined them. The trickle started slowly, but soon there was a steady current of vampires entering through the doors. After half an hour the room was full.

"Everyone is here," Henry whispered to the rest of them.

"We must have made a convincing case," Charlie said.

"Now we just need to get everyone to agree on a plan of attack," Adisa said.

"Don't be so pessimistic. Enjoy the success," Charlie said to him. He smiled at her.

"Forgive me, oh wise maiden," he said.

"Oh shut up," she told him and tried to elbow him. But he had the reflex of a cat and jumped behind Nasir. The rest of the clan laughed and the heavy blanket of anxiety that had been draped over them, lifted.

"My friends, thank you all for joining us this morning. Maiden Charlie is going to start us off with a run through of the information we have of the group we are targeting. Thereafter we will hold a round the table discussion in order to replace how to solve this issue. We urge everyone to keep in mind that we don't have time to waste, let's keep the discussion civil and streamlined," Vidar addressed the room. He then smiled at Charlie and joined the others as they drew to the side of the stage, leaving room for the giant screen that showed Charlie's and Lucas' software. The graphic interface was now completed and it looked amazing. At least Charlie thought so.

“Thank you, Vidar. Let us have a look at the habits of our opponents. Our software has gathered information from tens of thousands of databases from around the world. The information is then processed and mapped and this is the result,” she explained. A globe appeared on the screen, it was covered in different coloured dots that looked to be glowing. “Each individual has their own colour,” she said, clicked on the device in her hand and a list of the names appeared and next to them dots with each name's designated colour. “Using this information we can create travel patterns, location patterns and much more," she continued. She clicked again and only one colour was visible on the globe and above the globe a date and time showed, two weeks back. As the date started to count closer to today's date, the pattern of dots moved over the globe, the first ones becoming fainter, while the new ones were the brightest. She continued to showcase example of how to use the software so everyone would know what they could use it for. Then she did a walkthrough of all the three main suspects and their behaviour during the last month. "And that concludes my presentation," she told everyone after an hour. Her throat felt dry and scratchy, she wasn't used to talking for so long. There was a moment of silence and then everyone started talking all at once.

"Amazing, did you see how she could track them over time?"

"I wish I had something like that, do you know how easy it would be to keep track of the family?"

"I wonder if they are looking to sell the software? It has to be cheaper than hiring witches to trace people. And more accurate.” Charlie blushed at the praise and she was happy to feel Vidars arms as he drew her in for a quick kiss.

'Amazing as always,' he linked her.

"Let's open up the floor for ideas," Nasir said to everyone. The following hours were full of discussions. There were two opposite ways to deal with the situation. The more cautious one where they would use the information Charlie's software had gathered and use it to isolate the three individuals. Strike against their business and contacts. The downside to that was they would know what happened. It was impossible to use that tactic without the target noticing their bridges were being burned. The risk was the three vampires would then push their timeline forward, ending in a big battle they all wanted to avoid. The more direct plan was to try and pinpoint a location where all three would be and strike. It would be a big showdown, but if they were lucky, it would look like a mafia war and they would kill all three vampires in one go. The risk was if they weren't quick enough human authorities could get involved, or one of the vampires they were after could get away in the chaos.

"We are going around in circles, all arguments have been discussed more than once. It's time we settle it with a vote," Jun said to everyone. An agreeing murmur were heard. "Black marble for the slower attack, white for the direct approach,” he told them and boxes of velvet bags were passed around. Each vampire took a velvet bag.

'What is this?' Charlie linked Vidar as she took a bag.

'In the bag there are two marbles. One smooth white one, and the other black with texture. We will set up an urn. Each vampire will vote on what they think we should do by retrieving a marble from the bag and putting it in the urn. You can d it as openly or as hidden as you like. When everyone has voted we will count the marbles,' he explained.

'And I should do it as well?' she asked.

'Of course you should. You are one of us now.'

'But I have never done something like this,' she objected.

'Sometime needs to be your first. You're intelligent and have a good head for analysing things. I'm sure you have an opinion,' he told her. Charlie watched as a big urn was brought out and placed on the stage. One by one the members of her clan stepped up to it, put their hands in their velvet bag and then put a marble in the urn. It gave off a clicking sound. Vidar nudged Charlie and she stepped up to the urn. She put her hand in the bag and felt one smooth and one textured marble. She closed her hand around the smooth one and dropped it into the urn. Vidar voted as well and they moved to the side. One by one the vampires walked up to the urn and made their vote. When everyone was done, they all stood crowded on the stage. Jun and Henry walked up to the urn, they had a kiddy pool with them and Charlie almost giggled. They placed it beside the urn and Charlie understood the practicality of it as they emptied the urn into the pool. "Does anyone insist on a count?" Jun asked. The crowd remained silent. Charlie could see why. In the pool there was a sea of white with only scattered specks of black. The direct attack has won by a landslide. "Then we start planning,” Jun saic They all moved to another room where they were seated at tables forming a horseshoe. Charlie briefly wondered who would have to clean up the marbles and sort them back into the bags. But she let the thought go as they started to plan their attack. She didn't contribute much to the discussion, she was new to planning attacks. But she did feed them information from her software. They were served food in the room and only took shorter breaks. In the evening of day two of planning they had the foundation of a good plan in place. They were taking a short break, the clan stood on a balcony to get some fresh air. It was the first time Charlie had been outside in three days and she enjoyed the comfortable heat in the dusk.

"The helicopter will be ready to go by midnight," Vidar told them.

"Go where?" Charlie asked.

"Home," he said. Charlie was confused. Nowhere in the plan was there room for a trip back home. Then she understood.

"You are not going to put me on that thing and send me home while the rest of you go into battle," she told him.

"You are going home and you will stay there until all of this is over," Vidar insisted. Charlie looked at the others and they all nodded.

"Why?" she wanted to know.

"Charlie, you may be a vampire, but you are still young. You haven't been in a battle or had any training in fighting or defending yourself. We can't risk it,” Adisa said. His honey eyes were filled with kindness and understanding. "You are our clan sister and we all love you. We can't risk coming out of the battle without you," Henry told her.

"And you expect me to sit and wait for news if you survived or not? And what do you expect me to do if you don't? What do I do if you leave me all alone?" she asked. "Charlie, baby, that is not going to happen," Vidar comforted her.

"You can't promise that," she objected.

"No, he can't. But the likelihood that three vampires are able to take out all of us is extremely small," Nasir said.

"Almost to the point that we can make it a promise," Jun added. Charlie looked to Liwei, she was the only one that had remained silent.

"I understand how you feel. I have sat on the sideline for forty years and had to get news about Jun from my sources. I wouldn't approve of this kind of plan. But in this case I do. Charlie, if we lose you, we will lose Vidar as well. Like it or not, the two of you have become the heart of this clan, it would be devastating to all of us. Let us keep you safe this time. I will personally make sure you get the training needed for this to not happen again,” Liwei said. The two women looked at each other and then Charlie looked at Vidar. He would sacrifice himself if she was in danger, as would Caine and the rest of the clan. She didn't have it in her to put them in a situation where they needed to focus on keeping her safe and sacrificing themselves. And they were right, she didn't know the first thing about going into battle.

"I will hold you to that,” she told Liwei. "Okay, I'll go back home and join my brothers and the twins. But if you don't come back to me, I will never forgive you for it and now that I'm a vampire, forever can be a long time," she said to Vidar. He smiled at her and drew her into a hug.

"Let's head inside, it's almost time to resume the meeting," Adisa told them. As they walked down the corridor, both Charlie's and Vidar's phone chimed. Charlie took hers out and looked at it. It was a message from Caine. Ca: Your software is giving out a warning.

"We need to go to the war room, now!" Charlie said and turned to go back the way they came.