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I took my time with the first part of my plan. I've been tinkering with molecular redesign for a while now, and in my apartment practiced converting bowls of water to fuel grade alcohol. Clairvoyantly locating and tracing the water lines for the emergency sprinkler system, I converted all of the water to alcohol in the pipes from the spray valves themselves all the way back to the cut-off valve in the basement. The alcohol isn't going anywhere, and can sit there for several days; I did it early, so that if there was any problem, I had time to get it all done.
Once that was done, I got Whisp and George mobilized. Working together, they were able to drill holes deep into the rock around and behind the Presemium, and plant explosives at carefully selected locations. With Whisp's high tech scanning and weaponry gear and George's demolitions training, I have every confidence that they've set things up well.
I've told the others to expect it to go down on a sunny day this week. They've cleared their calendars for the purpose.
Focusing psionically on the electrical panel, I selected a likely trunk line, and began to tinker with the wiring. In a few minutes, I had transmuted bits of the insulation to nichrome, the nickel-chromium alloy used in heating elements such as those in a toaster. Soon the wires began to overheat, and an electrical fire started in the wall. It will look like a short in the wires started it. Then the fire spread, and I notified Father Holer that it had started. He got the State Street Mission on the Move set up across the street (down a bit of a distance, so that he would not be in the way of the fire company when they arrived. Coffee and hot soup was prepared already, and the area around the lunch wagon marked out as holy ground to provide a fall-back point. Then the sprinkler system went off automatically, and the alcohol in the pipes was sprayed throughout the building, igniting immediately in a huge fireball, and setting off the alarms.
When the fire department arrived, I began flashing my N.S.A. credentials with the chief. We had reason to believe, I offered, that a group of subversive revolutionaries had been using the building as a meeting place, and stockpiling arms and weapons in its basements. Fire fighters were directed to stay out of and away from the building, attempting to contain and control the fire, helping anyone who came out of the flames.
Father Holer worked his part as well. Meandering over to the fire company to invite the men to have coffee and soup whenever they had the chance, he also said a little prayer for their success--blessing all of the water in the tanks of the pumper truck. From time to time he would return to renew his blessing, creating thousands of gallons of holy water for the fire company to pour into the building and spray on survivors. There were one or two ghouls who, hit with holy water from a pressure hose when they came out, went back in to face the flames.
Then George detonated the charges in two blasts, collapsing the lower chambers. Whisp had detected two chambers deep under the basement, with boxes in the lower one which certainly fit the theory that they were coffins. These, if not crushed by the force of the blast, would be buried under the collapsing rock in tunnels flooded with holy water. Nothing would come out of there after today.
Whisp was my backup; I never needed to call on him. No vampire could have come out of the building in this light, and nothing else came out either. Before sunset, the Presemium had burned to the ground, and its underground vaults collapsed and flooded.
The Coffee Shoppe has been closed for some time. Luke managed to finagle the salvage rights for me, and arrange a truck and a couple of workers to lend a hand. Today we went into the building, and pulled out the rafters. Of course, I knew that there was a gold coin, a Malcavian vampire attractor, epoxied to one of these beams. They were loaded on the back of the truck, and Raal took the wheel for the first leg of the journey. We'll be heading to the southwest American desert, non-stop, as Whisp and I share the driving with him. I'd like to see the vampires who try to find this magic talisman, buried in the dry earth of death valley, miles from the nearest scrap of shade.
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