It's been years since Power of the Wol and I laid the groundwork for the Scarlet Traces trilogy. And now I am finally getting to writing this story. It has been sitting on the back burner for long enough now. It's time this story was told. Even if I don't finish it by the end of October, I will keep going until the end. I hope you will enjoy this long coming sequel to Scarlet Traces.

Prologue

Old Hallows Eve; the day made famous by our ancestor Vladimir Bloodsucker, the father of our kind. He started the tradition of our yearly feast, one that continued on for many generations. That is…until Master Jeremiah Bigwig's son, the Chief Justice, took over as our permanent leader. He decided to change all of that. Our yearly practice was too barbaric for a Cog; and what the Toons do to our kind is not?

He made us swear not to kill the Toons on our day, in exchange for at least getting to capture them. For a while, it was a fair trade off. Fair until he decided one year to then deny us even that tradition. That year, last year, everything went wrong. It was when Bloodsucker 606-6 fell in love with a Toon, twice I might add, and brought about the end of our secret operations.

Our machine that we'd worked so hard on was destroyed; the machine that drained the blood out of Toons for us so we weren't breaking the rules of biting Toons. After that incident and our plans discovered, every Bloodsucker was demoted back into a lowly Bottomfeeder. 606-6 has disgraced us all…

Now there can only be a minority of us at a time so we can be closely monitored; and our Holiday has been lost forever. At least Chief Justice would like to think so…

118-1 looked amongst his assembled brothers with a quiet, blank expression as they glanced about the room in confusion and grief. There were only five of his batch left now, himself included; Two, Five, Six, and their youngest, Eight. Over the course of a year Three, Four, and Nine had been lost in fights with Toons. Then there was Seven, who had died trying to defend their cause against 606-6, the traitorous Cog. The silence amongst his little siblings was finally broken by Eight.

"Why did we have to come here," he sniffed, oily tears forming in his eyes, "I-isn't this where Seven died, One?"

"Because," he answered, "here we can converse undisturbed. No Cog dares enter this space. Besides, Seven is the topic of choice my brothers."

The assembled brothers fidgeted uneasily in the silence that followed until Five spoke up, "I knew Seven shouldn't have trusted 606-6...look where it got him."

"Funny you mention that Five. It's true that 606-6 is the one who caused our brother death... but what was his real reason for attacking Seven in the first place?"

There was a long pause, as if they did not wish to say it. The youngest piped up once more.

"…That Toon…" replied Eight.

Five snorted at the mention of her and Six frowned. One nodded curtly in response to his youngest, "Had he not fallen for her like he did the other, 606-6 wouldn't have been so inclined to protect her. Now that we've all been re-promoted to Bloodsuckers, I thought it a good time to inform you, my brothers, of how I plan to get back at that wretched Toon."

"H-how will we do that…?" Eight sniffed, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Powerful, yet quiet foot steps entered the room a moment later. One's eyes tracked them to the source and smirked. Their guest of honor had arrived. The rest of the 118 batch swiveled around to face the unknown visitor in the room. Their faces froze in shock and awe at who stood there before them.

In response to Eight's question One replied with a smirk, "By acquiring the aid of a certain...ally to our cause…"