Evans looks at the friendly gesture, opens his mouth (possibly to make a sharp remark), then thinks better of it and nods.  He picks up his Aetheric Waveform Detection Device and begins fiddling with dials and adjustments. "Hmm." he says, taking readings from the dogs and then the horse corpse. "Perhaps I can narrow down the possibilities."

((OOC: Gonna break out my Detect Arcane power and see what sorts of readings I can get. I'm specifically looking for hints as to whether this was a spontaneous raising caused by the ambient aetheric entities (aka Shamantic magic) or something external and more forceful (aka Black Magic). Fine distinctions like that are part of the trapping this power.

21:43, Today: The Amazing Evans rolled 6,4 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,4. Weird Science!))

The gang mosey on up to the dead horse for Evans to deliberate upon. The clouds are becoming denser now, swirling in great whorls around the sky, dragging their peculiar skull shapes into a long and ragged scarf of mutely screaming souls like an inverted Styx above them.

Adrian shows them the mess that was the horse's head, and Evans kneels here as he had with the dogs, watched by the others. There's still no reaction from the ranch, despite all the gunfire.

The first audible {{CRACKBOOM}} of thunder rolls in from the sea.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:28, Fri 03 Jan 2014.

Adrian, well-mannered but on occasion uncouth, turned and spat to the side, and looked up at the sky. "I reckon' there's a storm fixin' to hit us. Whenever you done narrowed down the possibilities far enough, Marshal, I think we best get on with whatever we're about and head onto the ranch. And I second Pierce's suggestion that we stick together. Things are dicey enough as it is without us splittin' ourselves up."

Jake watched the storm coming, to his eyes it looked like massive murder of crows all cawing at once as they flew across the sky. For his part the hexslinger didn't seem to mind it, the crows would have him soon enough he was quite sure of it. A simple nod was all he felt was needed to agree with Adrian and Pierce on the idea to not split up.

"Do you possess sticky minus grenade, Deputy Vega?" the clank asks, since it failed to locate anything to stick the posse together with itself.

"!" It straightens suddenly, then shuffles up to Adrian. "Soloution: interlinking selves and walking, like ladies-" it nabs Adrian's arm like an eager metal dance partner, then leans over and drags William in.

"-selves sticking, also with hands to hold objects!" it chirps. It doesn't seem to have considered how they'll locomote like that.

As he was contemplating exactly what a sticky minus grenade might be, he was grabbed by the clank into what ended up as more of a shuffle to maintain his footing rather than a dance or any kinda lady-walk.

"I don't think that's gonna work out very well, Alouette," he offered, when he finally managed to regain his balance and breath, trying delicately to extricate his arm from the automaton's grip.

"It's hard to walk and hold a gun like that. Or a sticky whats-it."

"Logic error, Deputy Vega," the clank protests as Adrian carefully removes himself. "-If y'all held guns and held the hands that were spare, only two people could stick together, and they would go round unless one went backwards: minus efficient for walking forwards."

It ticks a bit. "Self could ask My Man Abraham for sticky - he has the kitchen arranged as he likes it because he is a Creature Of Habit and some of the things in the kitchen are Fruit Preserves, which are plus sticky and go different colours if you done pour forgetting on them-"

The priest clears his throat. "I think perhaps Pierce meant we should stay within a few paces of each other, Alouette...perhaps if you let him go he'd be, er, more efficient at helping keep us mortals safe."

Pierce nods.
"Yes. That's what I meant."
Then he adds to Evans: "How far is it? Are we going to make it before the storm breaks?"

"Storm's already arrived, it would seem." Evans mutters as he gauges his readings. "I'm getting wild readings from all over the place. The aetheric signature is the one I've connected with our vampire infestation. Vampires had contact with the dogs, the horse, the trails around us...everywhere. I think Vanderholt came here. The readings aren't old at all...the decay rate is somewhere within the last three hours, which means the vampire trails only started after the bulk of the Dust Adders had reached town. Right around the time Mr. Milburn and that Seven of Spades character left for here. William, you came to town with Spades...did you recognize that as his horse?"

The priest looks dubiously at what little there is left of the horse to recognise, faintly aghast. "You mean the horse was a vampire?"

"What?" Evans says, blinking. "No, not that. Walker, perhaps, but not vampire. The readings from it aren't THAT strong...just strong enough to indicate contact, like it's reading you having come into contact with vampires recently. We all know how that turned out." He shakes his head. "But with this much vampire activity around here, perhaps someone was attacked while on the horse. Someone certainly used some sort of aetheric disturbance on the poor beast, the sort of disturbance I'm sure Alouette would label 'witchcraft.'"

"I don't particularly remember Spades' horse."
He scratches his beard.
"So Marina got hungry, hm? Reckon we might have to face more than one vampire then. Potentially all of the ranch hands now."

He looks around on the floor. "Guess we'll need a few more stakes."

Evans looks back over at the ruins of his cart. "We have all the wood we'll need, but between the explosion and the gunfire, it's likely that they've heard us coming. It can't be more than a quarter mile from here to the ranch...we could see it if they had any lights on. Let's cut a few stakes and get moving." So saying, he returns to the smashed wheel he pulled Alouette's new hickory stick from and begins pulling a few spokes free.

Adrian joined them in the stake collecting effort, gleefully prying free a handful of pieces of wood, chopping as need be with the scythe that tipped his gun. After some thought, he carefully jammed the scythe on the tip of one of his guns into one of the broader piece of wood, but one light enough that it wouldn't significantly affect the balance of the weapon. He tucked a few into an empty holster, and clutched another in his free hand.

"We know how many vamps we're dealin' with?" He didn't know a damn thing about this sort they were dealing with here, or who the hell Marina was, besides the little he had been able to glean from the various conversations that had taken place in his presence. But he'd read some about their sort before - enough to make him a little dangerous to them.

Pierce breaks a few spokes from another wheel, then sharpens them with a knife into stakes.
"Who knows how many?" he asks, wistfully, as he pricks his finger on a sharpened point.
"Depends how many Marina got... and how many came back already. Also if those who did come back were able to spawn a few more."

He shrugs. "I reckon, all of them. Give or take."

The priest was about to respond to Evans' comment on the vampire he'd temporarily sheltered when the Marshal decided to trek back down the road to the wagon for more stakes. He sighs and tries not to scratch at the slim scabbed spear-kerf scoring his left arm, hooking the carriage-lantern he'd lifted from the wagon over the end of his crowbar in case of need.

Alouette stays with him, since this mortal is technically nearer vampires, though it spends a moment or so doing its weird stockstill stare-at-the-sky thing.

"God says it was right to try," it informs O'Rourke. "-and that you need a hug."

"Wha-" *ouf* O'Rourke considers untangling himself, but then just goes with it and shares a sincere hug with the metal angel. "Thank you, Alouette."

The clank lets go (it is thundering, after all). "Can hugs pass on?" it asks. "Bitter Waters said Don't you EVER touch me again!, but he feels of thin and sadness also."

A few large, unseasonally cold drops of rain crater the dust around the stake-gatherers.

Pierce smiles at the unusual couple of the priest and the clank. A sight almost as unusual.
"Don't want to scare you, though. Far as I could tell, the horse was already dead...ish, when it was torn apart. No blood on those wounds."

Vega chimed in after Pierce started talking about the horse. "And it was clearly runnin' away from the ranch. I'm pretty damn sure the dogs got it," he said.

Why was it running away, though? Or from what? Pierce wonders, but keeps this thought to himself.

In reply to Father William O'Rourke (msg # 148):

Jake rolled his eyes at the clank's words, "You'd feel sadness too if you didn't think you would survive what's coming."

"Oh, you'll survive, Bitter Waters. But sometimes surviving's worse'n the other," he said.

Jake glanced at Vega, "No ... I don't see myself surviving this, the serpent or the crows will have me. I'm not even me anymore, the lot of you keep calling me the name that crazy shaman gave me."

"Regardless we should get moving, too much going on for us not to be sorting it out."

Pierce shrugs.
"Most things in this town don't seem to stay dead for long. So who knows... you may have a long life ahead of you yet."
He grins, revealing his somewhat longer canines.

"And you keep complaining about your name, but never introduced yourself. At least not to me. If you'd prefer me to call you by a different name, you should let me know."

"Jake Lawrence," was all he said.

William nods.

"Pleasure having you on our side, Jake. You alright with me calling you Jake? Not sure if I managed to make the proper introductions myself... Name's William Pierce."