Chapter Two: Training

Saying goodbye to my mother this morning had been even harder than I had expected, but it had also renewed my determination for my chosen course. As did the contract that sat on the table before me. It was filled with the usual meandering legalese, but the main points I had been told about were in there, as was my own personal request. Being told that I needed to sign in my own blood however, that was more than a bit disturbing and creepy, especially considering my own odd reactions during the whole process. I was quite disconcerted to feel a jolt of disappointment when they didn’t make me slash open a vein, a simple needle and vial providing all that was supposedly necessary to ink my signature. There had been a strange feeling to write it too, like I had just signed over my soul. An apparently normal sensation that they had reassured me would only bind me magically and verbally to the contract, to prevent me from spilling any of the agency’s secrets. At least I was not alone in all of this, Mr. Hastings and all of the people who worked for the agency had to sign similar contracts. Still, the whole process gave me tingles down my spine.

“Alright, now that that’s taken care of, I can give you a little more information. The Academy is located in Russia, on Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal near Mongolia. It’s a four year school, but luckily you’re still in the accepted age range to attend. The Headmistress is Bolormaa, a Drakonian who has ruled the school for centuries. She has agreed to accept you for the fall semester, but warned me that your safety was up to you. They won’t tolerate blatant attacks, but pretty much anything else is fair game. She says it weeds out the weaklings. Because of this we’ll be spending most of our time strengthening your body, recreating your protection shield, teaching you the basics of mind magic, and of course about all the interesting and dangerous species you’ll encounter while there.”

Lovely. I silently swallowed and began to feel a sinking feeling in my gut, “I suppose we should get started then.”

He showed me the room I would be staying in, a barren military barracks room. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much since we were after all at the Yakima Training Center, one of Washington state’s largest shrub-steppe habitats and where Fort Lewis did many of their maneuvers and live-fire training. It wasn’t meant to be lived in full-time, but I guess I’d just have to make due.

I changed into one of the training uniforms provided and as I drew up my blond hair into a ponytail, I just stopped and stared at myself in the mirror. Five foot six, blue eyes, pale, and with high cheekbones that I was told were considered classically beautiful, could I really do this? I looked more like a delicate china doll than the tough agent they said they wanted. And yet, someone obviously had enough faith (or desperation) in me that they had provided me with personal instructors and training. Well I guess I’d never know if I didn’t try. I turned away from the mirror and headed back outside.

Upon first seeing my new instructor my mind immediately screamed ‘dwarf!’ and I couldn’t help but wonder if he really was, but no, Mr. Hastings had said they only had humans employed by the agency - no one else wanted to be a part of it. Leon Don’t-Ask-Me-My-Last-Name was short, shorter than me, bald and quite muscular with a short fuzzy red mustache. I didn’t dare ask him his last name.

“Alright Langden, let’s see what you’re made of,” Leon bellowed, the sound echoing across the training field. “Run you runty maggot! And keep running until I say you can stop, or you puke, whichever comes first!”

I ran. Now I had been in track at school, so I considered myself a pretty good runner, but apparently that wasn’t good enough. Leon kept urging me to go faster until I was at sprinting speed, and then I was told to maintain it. My lungs burned in agony, my leg muscles screamed in chorus and even after the scrubby plants at the side of the track received my nourishing upchuck the sadistic dwarf pushed me on. Although after I puked he did at least keep to his word and let me stop running, only so that I could do other exercises though. Push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and more, all the while Leon’s booming voice yelling insulting motivations. I had more muscles aching then I even knew I had. When he at last let me stop, I collapsed chest heaving, to the ground, enjoying the cool breeze across my feverish, sweat-soaked skin.

“Don’t just sit there you dog begotten short-bus reject! Start stretching before your pitiful muscles seize!” As I slowly started stretching my limbs he continued, “Now I’ve only got two months to try and make you able to hold your own against those suped up freaks at that school, so that means I’m going to be working you hard. Now no matter how much stronger or faster you get, puke-breath, you still won’t be able to hold up a candle against most of the magical races, but I’m going to do my damnedest to shorten the gap! I will teach you self defense techniques, weapons, including guns, to injure or kill the little buggers, and about as many weaknesses on your foes as I know! Your enemies will be many and if you want to survive, you must be more ruthless, blood-thirsty, and cruel than the meanest serial killer on this earth! If you are attacked you must be willing to do ten-times as much damage in return! They push you into a wall, you break a limb. If one tries to take a bite out of you, you slit their throat! You must make them respect and fear your retribution! Only then might you survive!”

His words whirled in my head as I tried to imagine breaking someone’s arm or even killing them on purpose , “I’m not sure I can be that, that ruthless!”

“Well you better toughen up sweet cheeks, that is, unless you want your pretty little mom to stay right where she is.” His eyes were hard as a faint smirk graced his lips, tilting his mustache.

I was frozen in horror. I thought I was prepared to face the danger, but I hadn’t even considered what I would have to do to survive it. Images of my mom in the accident and at the hospital battled side by side in my head with imagined ones of me cruelly slicing some shadowy figure’s neck, blood spraying across the gleeful grin on my face. Did I really want to do this, would my mom want me to become this kind of monstrous person? I knew she would hate the idea, the thought of me doing this, but she wasn’t here. She wasn’t here. It was the very reason why I had decided to do this. I had asked myself before just how far I was willing to go in pursuit of this path and as a hard glint entered my eyes, I knew I’d found a new low.

I really shouldn’t feel too guilty at the thought anyways, I thought to myself, trying to shake off my continuing unease. With their super-sturdy bodies, it would probably be really hard for me to do any real lasting damage and I would only need to respond that harshly if they attacked me first. I needed to learn to harden my heart and remember that I wouldn’t be dealing with humans at the Akademiya. I would be all alone, surrounded by enemies, with no one to help me if I got in too deep. And just deciding to go to that school guaranteed I was already in too deep, “I understand sir.”

He must have recognized the resoluteness in my face, my stance, because he only nodded, “Let’s get you over to the nurse’s office then. She’ll have a potion to help purge the lactic acid out of your muscles.”

I was given a hand up and slowly hobbled my way over to a building marked with the universally known red cross symbol. Leon led the way in, “Hey Green, we’re going to need that potion now.”

I followed him inside and was rooted to the ground in shock, “You!” Miss Beth Green, my mother’s nurse from the hospital, stood in front of me, miles away from where I’d last expected to see her.

“Hello, sweetie,” she cheerfully smiled at me.

I stammered, “How? What?”

I watched her smooth her blue uniform skirt with her hands, “I’m sure it’s a bit of a shock seeing me here, but it’s something easily explained. I work for the Office of Paranormal Affairs. I was assigned to keep an eye on you after your accident and determine if you had in fact awakened your magic.”

My jaw dropped, “You were spying on me!”

“Oh yes hun,” she nodded quite matter-of-fact, “You might as well get used to it too, as it is a necessary part of our duties. In fact, you will be learning quite a bit about it this summer.” She beamed a mischievous grin at me. I’d obviously jinxed myself earlier with my whole, ‘Langden, Jessica Langden’ bit.

“I’ll be teaching some of what you need to know for that, as well as first aid and basic mind magic,” she continued to inform me.

“Well now that you two are reacquainted,” Leon interjected, “I’m going to be heading out. Jessica, I’ll expect you at six in the morning on the training field, warmed up and ready.”

Oh goody, I thought, favoring my aching muscles, more torture. Knowing better than to voice this aloud I simply answered, “Yes, sir.”

After watching him leave I turned back to the nurse, “So what now?”

“Now, you’ll drink this,” she replied, handing me a corked glass vial containing a dark blue liquid.

I eyed it briefly before shrugging and pulling the stopper out with my teeth, then chugged it. The taste was so bitter and acrid I nearly gagged, “Blargh, what’s in this?”

“Dandelion, squid ink, calf tongue, banana, stinging nettle, red clover, and a pinch of hemlock,” she listed off each ingredient one by one using her fingers.

I gagged even more at the information. Wait, “Isn’t hemlock a poison?!” I exclaimed incredulously.

“Well of course if you took it straight, but even if the amount in the potion wasn’t too minute to be dangerous, the process of making a potion changes its chemical properties, thus eliminating the hazard. Don’t worry too much right now, you’ll learn plenty about it soon enough. This potion is one we’ll teach you this summer.”

Lovely, if I wasn’t careful I could end up dead before all my numerous future classmates even had the chance.

“That potion should have started taking effect by now. How do you feel?”

I moved my arm and was surprised by a definite lack of agony, “You should bottle and sell this stuff. You’d make a fortune!”

She looked amused, “Unfortunately impossible considering its brief shelf life and uselessness for the magical nulls. Only the addition of our body’s magic actually makes it worth anything.”

“So much for my get-rich-quick scheme,” I joked.

She clapped her hands in attention, “Well the day’s a-wasting so let’s get started on your next lesson, mind magic.”

The following couple of hours, I learned that mind magic began mostly with meditation, with centering myself and learning to find that inner core of power within me. Apparently I would learn to raise and maintain shields in my mind with time, but for now I was starving and it was long past time for lunch, at least according to my growling stomach that is.

The cafeteria was desolate, the few people inside all bunched up at one table near the food. It was kind of depressing, much like the food. Miss Beth and I sat down and I was introduced to the other instructors. Besides Leon, whose last name was apparently Spankey, and Brian Hastings, who would be instructing me in Runes, there was also Jaime Davis, an elegant looking woman with a New York accent and impeccable taste in shoes, and Mr. Michael Edward Cutherford, a slightly pudgy fellow who seemed to enjoy listening to himself speak far too much. Mrs. Davis was a potions Mistress and would be instructing me in the basics of her craft. Mr. Cutherford was a diplomat to the various magical races and would be helping me learn their strengths, weaknesses, and inter-relations. He also, unsurprisingly, would be my other instructor in the arts of espionage.

After lunch Hastings and I moved to a more comfortable common area. Runes, I learned, not only consisted of the ancient Germanic Futhark languages, but also included such things as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and some specialized Chinese characters. Because each of the glyphs directly corresponded to an individual object or abstract idea they could be used symbolically to perform magic. Now it would take too much time to study all of the types that existed, so this summer I would mostly focus on the various Futhark scripts and some other useful combinations. These runes would be key to guarding my personal chambers at the Akademiya and also help shield myself.

Mr. Hastings spent two hours going over the history of the Futharks and their basic rune sets, gave me a book for further study on my own time, and then showed me to a room that had clearly been converted into a laboratory. After entering the room I saw Mrs. Davis with her dark brown hair up in an elegant knot, goggles over her eyes and her gloved hands resting upon her lab coat-covered hips. Looking at her and the Bunsen burner and beaker covered table I couldn’t help but giggle. I always thought it would be fun to play mad scientist.

“Well don’t stand there gawking in the doorway, come in and put on some protective gear,” she ordered briskly, pointing to a set hanging on the wall beside me.

“Yes, ma’am.” The white lab coat and grey rubber gloves were slightly too big for me, but at least the goggles could be adjusted. As she made little noises of impatience, I hurried over to her side, still fidgeting with one glove.

“Alright Miss Langden, I want you to take this knife and cut this carrot into even sized portions.”

“I thought this was potions, not cooking,” I jokingly protested.

Her flat stare told me she was not amused, “If you think I’m going to waste good potion ingredients on you before you even know how to cut and measure things properly, you’re vastly overestimating your own importance.”

Chagrined, I began to cut the carrot.

“No, no, no! If you cut it by even lengths, then as the carrot’s diameter increases, the portions will not remain equal! Do it again.”

The next couple hours was a trial in patience as I learned to cut, grind, weigh, and measure to Mrs. Davis’ exacting standards, all the while with her haranguing my each and every mistake. When she finally told me to clean everything up, I let go a sigh of relief before quickly glancing at her in trepidation.

To my ease, she gave me a wry smile, “I know you think I’m being harsh, but you’ll thank me in the future. Potions can be extremely delicate and after your first explosion you’ll definitely appreciate my training.”

Explosion? Just great, another way to die before summer’s end. A knock at the door interrupted my morbid musings, and Mr. Cutherford poked his head inside, “All done in here, Jaime?”

“Just one moment Michael,” she answered him before turning to me with a book in her hand, “Jessica, this book goes over the basic classes of ingredients, their magically symbolic meanings, uses, and how they interact with each other. Study it and read at least two chapters tonight. Take notes. I will quiz you tomorrow to see how well you retain information.”

“Well if she’s not too good at retaining it right now, don’t worry. Observation and memory recall are two of the things I’ll be training her in.” Cutherford beamed at us both.

They were in fact two things I would be learning immediately, I soon found out when Mr. Cutherford led me to a seemingly desolate strip of dirt road and asked me to tell him everything I saw. I looked around at the sparse vegetation on either side, the dry road bed beneath our feet and the mountainous hills hemming us in, and wondered if there was a trick to his question.

Seeing my confusion, he demonstrated, “If you look closely at the road, you will see several types of tracks. The ones embedded into the hard dirt were made when it was still mud, which you should know by the arid landscape, was quite a while ago. Now these tracks, pointing to a set of horse hoof prints, are much fresher. You can tell by how the dirt crumbles into the tracks, and partially covers the mud made prints.”

His lecture continued for a while, teaching me how to tell which print was freshest, the probable order they were made in, and even approximately how long ago each was made. Then we moved onto memory recall. He asked for me to describe each of my instructors in detail, what they taught me, any details and impressions they gave me. Accents, word choice, styles of dress, all these things gave a lot of information about a person and were important for me to learn to remember.

One of the ways he had decided to train my memory, was to refuse to let me take notes. So when we moved on to my magical races’ studies, I was focused to an extreme degree.

“Let’s start with vampires. Now there are two main types of vampire. The European one of legend, with whom you’re probably more familiar, and the one of East Asia and Pacific Islands. Both types are undead who have fangs and suck the blood of the living. The European one is much like the Hollywood portrayal of Dracula. Burns in sunlight, affected by Holy items, and can only be killed by a stake through the heart or removing the head. Garlic does nothing to them. The more powerful ones can fly, change into an animal form, or even take control of a person.

“Now the Asian vampire is a little different. For one, removing their head won’t kill them. Their heads are actually able to self-detach naturally without any personal harm. While the body can still continue to move around somewhat normally, the head can then fly away to suck it’s victims’ blood. If the body is destroyed while the head is gone however, the vampire will soon die. They can be recognized by the ring of red runes that surround their neck, although this is often covered to prevent identification. Now they too are affected by Holy items, but the key to remember with both of these types is that for a Holy item to work, true belief must be invoked and willfully projected.

Something important to remember is that while both types of vampires can change regular humans into their respective type of vampire, thus increasing their numbers, they are also still considered to be true races because although rare, they do occasionally have live born children.. Such children generally age until their mid to late twenties, before dying and becoming an undead. While these children are not technically dead, they do in fact still require blood to survive; they will have super-human strength, speed, and reflexes; and will usually inherit their parents’ magical gifts. Expect some of them to be your future classmates,” he finished with a wry grin.

We walked back to the main compound and the cafeteria. Dinner was as uninspiring as lunch and afterwards I went back to my room to study my books before crashing into a deep and heavy sleep. Morning would come far too soon for me.

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* * *

The muscles in my arms and legs grew quickly as the days passed and my instructors relentlessly pushed my knowledge farther and farther. After Leon determined my body was at a level he termed ‘adequate,’ he set me to self defense techniques. Mostly it was throws and deflections and learning how to fall while minimizing my injuries, things that could actually help me against someone with overwhelming strength. I received a lot of scrapes and bruises in those weeks. Leon told me it was a good thing that I was building up a decent level of pain resistance. For offense, he started with knife techniques and then he gave me the great equalizer.

“Alright puke breath, now that you’re at a point where you might just last ten seconds against one of your future classmates, it’s time to give you something that might actually let you last a bit longer and maybe even make a few of them miscreant mutant freaks wary to tangle with you. This,” he pulled out a dull silver and black gun, “is a Smith & Wesson 627 Pro Series Revolver. It can carry eight rounds of .357 magnum caliber bullets and weighs about two and a half pounds fully loaded. I’ve chosen it for you not only because it’s a large caliber, and will actually be able to do some damage, but also because it’s so easy to use and care for, with such a smooth, easy trigger pull that even a rank newb like yourself shouldn’t be able to fail with it.”

He handed it over me and I almost dropped it from its weight. Two and a half pounds didn’t sound like much, but when I had to hold it straight out in front of me, it seemed like a lot more. He showed me how the gun was put together, explaining the different parts, and how to load the cartridges. Then, after handing me a pair of ear plugs, indicating how I should put them in as he did so himself, he set me into the basic isosceles shooting stance, with my legs spread, both hands holding the gun out and my arms locked. I lined up my sights with the target, took a deep breath and on the exhale, pulled slowly and steadily on the trigger. The first shot was loud and bright, accompanied by a flash of flame from the barrel and a kickback that would have probably broke my nose if my arms hadn’t been locked. A slow grin spread across my face as I saw the small hole on the outer edge of the circular target. Oh, I liked this.

It couldn’t all be fun and guns though, there was still a lot of knowledge the other instructors still needed to cram inside my head. With Miss Beth, I learned to raise simple shields to hide my thoughts, then I was taught how to secrete my thoughts in other ways. In espionage, the art of masks, being able to control what my face and body movements told people, was crucial. And Miss Bethany Green was a master of this art.

“People are really easy to manipulate,” she told me, “they usually only see what they expect or want to see. What you need to do is simply cater to those expectations,” there was a sweet smile on her broad face, and a glint of slyness in her dark eyes that I probably wouldn’t have noticed without her words.

“Like you as a nurse,” I responded dryly.

“Exactly! Because I was your mother’s nurse and you expected me to be there, you didn’t look any farther and figure out that I was spying on you. Now, for you it’ll be a little bit different, everyone at your school already expects each other to be a spy. So your goal isn’t to dispute the fact that you’re there to spy, but instead make them believe that what we’re really interested in is to them what they would consider merely inconsequential information. Basically, make yourself seem harmless.

“Because the school is such a proving ground, many of your classmates will be the children of quite important individuals. They will have been raised to be assured of their own superiority over other races and definitely over humans. You will use this assumption against them. Be insignificant, trivial, not worth wasting their time over you. In classes, play down your abilities, knowledge, and intelligence. Outside of classes, keep your head down, don’t deliberately challenge anyone. They aren’t expecting much from a human, so let them believe what they want to.”

“You do know that this is in exact opposition to what Leon has been telling me to do, right?” I ask her, chewing my lip in nervous perplexity, “He says I need to be utterly ruthless.”

“It may seem like a contradiction, but it actually isn’t. While this is the persona I want you to adapt from the very start, when you absolutely must defend yourself, be violent, cruel, and without any pity. However, only show that face to the one you’re directly opposing. To anyone else who may be watching, I want you to give an appearance of desperate panic. Make any strikes appear to be merely luck, especially if you have to kill your opponent in a direct confrontation. I want the other students to be curling their lips in disgust, both at your ‘pitiful’ skills and at your attacker’s ‘pathetic’ showing. Eventually, they might catch on, but I want you to hide your true skills until you are actually strong enough to go toe-to-toe with any one of them. That’s also the reason why I want you to look for allies or even just someone you can curry favor from who can act as a protector and deterrent.”

That lesson drastically increased my respect for the southern nurse as she taught me just how to project the desired impression. Of course, I didn’t just learn espionage tricks from her, I also learned to use the lessons in creating my mind shields to direct my magic in other ways. The magic of the mind seemed to come with a disconcerting ease, or so Miss Beth thought. I was just glad I would be able to keep any would be mind mages from stealing my every thought.

Using my earlier meditation technique, I learned a basic self-healing trance that could be used to lessen the amount of time an injury took to heal. Then, I learned how to project the physical protection shield I first created during the accident, only now using a runic bracelet as an amplifier. Leon had a great time testing its limits and would often jump me from out of nowhere both day and night to force me to learn how to throw it up at a moment’s notice. As I used it more it strengthened, could last longer, and I could get it up quicker. It was this shield that would be my main defense and most probable reason for my future survival. However, I couldn’t keep it up forever, and it was inevitable that I would eventually get hurt, so Miss Beth also taught me basic first aid techniques and the proper dosing for the potions I was being taught to make.

Mrs. Davis was just as implacable in her lessons as Leon was. It was fascinating to me to find out the reasoning behind a potion’s ingredient selection. Take the workout cure potion for example, able to flush the build up of lactic acid from my muscles because of its ingredients’ unique characteristics. The dandelion in it is anti-inflammatory and contains a high amount of potassium, which helps prevent muscle contraction and keeps the body’s fluids and electrolytes balanced. It’s the potassium which is responsible for this potion’s salty, bitter taste. The squid ink gives it that dark blue coloring and due to it’s mild cell toxicity, actually helps break down the lactic acid and prevent the high amounts of potassium in the potion from building up to dangerous levels in the body. Strangely enough, the banana also aids in that task due to a certain enzyme it contains, in addition to providing several useful vitamins and minerals, including potassium and vitamin C. Vitamin C is useful as an antioxidant, pro-oxidant, and antihistamine. The stinging nettle while also rich in nutrients, such as the all important potassium and more vitamin C, grants anti-inflammatory properties and an odd increase in testosterone production. To counteract and balance that last problem, the red clover is added as it contains phytoestrogens. Red clover too is rich in vitamins and minerals and actually helps increase the effectiveness of all those nutrients in the body. The seemingly strange addition of the poisonous hemlock can be explained by its sedative and antispasmodic properties, and since it’s a neurotoxin it can help numb the body’s pain as the potion goes to work. The risk taken with this ingredient is minimalized not only by the body’s magic, but also by the squid ink and banana keeping it from building up in the system and potassium’s diuretic quality helping flush it out.

That single potion took a week to learn how to brew, and the others weren’t much better. Besides the workout potion, I learned how to make a bruise balm, useful when I began my self-defense lessons, a wound sealant, and a blood replenisher, just in case I managed to lose too much blood. It was planned that for the rest of the summer I would be taught to make a bone booster, that would speed healing on cracked or broken bones (I’ll just have to make sure they’re set properly first.), a general antidote for poisons, and an interesting spray-on potion that had recently been developed by the Departments R&D team that would hopefully neutralize my scent.

For runes I studied the old Germanic Elder Futhark, Anglo-Saxon Futhark, and Younger Futhark alphabets and the meanings behind the individual runes. I was also introduced to the Celtic Ogham alphabet. That one was interesting because each rune not only had its own meaning, but also corresponded with a particular tree or plant. This was handy when I started learning how to carve the runes, as the material used could aid or hinder the end result. To empower the runes I needed to soak the wood with some of my own blood and activate them by pushing my magic into them. The runes would act similar to a computer program directing the power in a given task and only the blood of a magical being could properly conduct the energies involved. Mr. Hastings was merciless in drilling me in combinations that I could use to carve into my dorm room door and hopefully keep unwanted intruders out.

My lessons with Mr. Cutherford however, were more eclectic in style. One day it was on stealth and how to move unnoticed, the next it was on one of the various magical races and the proper etiquette for dealing with them. Sometimes he even combined his lessons, like right now.

A locked trunk sat in front of me, I closed my eyes, opened them, and then opened them again, unlocking my second sight and enabling me to see the basic alarm ward glowing around the trunk.

“Tell me about weres,” my instructor ordered me.

“They’re shape shifters,” I replied as I took out a yew brush and a vial of my own blood, “Their powers are linked to the lunar cycle, waning and growing along with the visible portion of the moon.”

I channeled my power into the brush as I began to paint the Ogham rune Idad on the lock with my blood, “Weres have strong instincts that echo those of their respective animal. So strong in fact that they often replicate the same types of social groups found naturally in the wild.”

The rune glowed briefly and a hole opened in the ward. I put away the brush and vial and reached into another pocket for my lock picks, “They are often strongly gifted in elemental magic, blood magic, and divination.” The lock snicked open and I carefully lifted the lid of the trunk, wary of more surprises, “All were types have a severe allergy to silver.

“Many predatory-type weres contain a venom in their claws and teeth that can change an ordinary human into one of their kind, if it doesn’t kill them.” I quickly memorized the exact positions of each of the items in the chest before taking out the high resolution digital camera that had been given to me, “Whether a bitten or clawed human will change into a were varies according to species, the amount of venom inside the body, and the overall health of the victim.”

I took detailed pictures of everything inside the trunk, focusing on letters and personal documents, then placed everything back in its original location, “It is important to remember to not look a were directly in the eyes, as most will take this as a challenge.” I relocked the trunk and wiped the lock with a cloth soaked in a solvent solution to remove any trace of my blood and power, watching as the hole in the ward snapped closed afterwards, leaving no trace I had ever been there.

“So how did I do?” I asked as I turned to Mr. Cutherford with a grin.

He held up a stopwatch with a smile, “Just over five minutes this time. It may have taken you six tries, but I think you’ve finally got it down. Congratulations, I think you’ve earned yourself a day of rest.”

Wow, an actual day of rest. I hadn’t had a moment of respite in all the four weeks I’d been here, nothing for me but work and study. I wasn’t even sure what to do with a day all for myself.

“I know it’s probably been hurting you to be away from her all this time, so why don’t you go see your mother,” he sympathetically suggested with a clap on my shoulder, unaware of the turmoil he just unwittingly wrought inside me.

Guilt struck me hard. I’d been so busy this month, I’d barely spared a thought for her at all. I knew I was being unreasonably unfair on myself, since I had after all been working so very hard for her sake, but that didn’t make the pain any less real.

“Yes, I think I’d like that,” I replied in a soft voice.

* * *

The hospital hadn’t changed, but I had. I hadn’t even realized just how much until I left the training facility and found myself jumping at sudden noises, automatically scouting for exits and defensive cover, and analyzing each person I saw. The journey to my mom’s room was far more harrowing an endeavor than I ever would have imagined. I would need to get this under control before I left for the Akademiya or I might just have a nervous breakdown from the stress of constantly being on my guard and spare my classmates the trouble of getting rid of me.

At least for now my mother’s room was peaceful. I sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand in mine. Her face looked more gaunt then it had been a month ago and I could tell her muscles had begun to atrophy by the way her arm jiggled a little bit more than it should have.

“Hey Mom, I’m back,” I began, slowly stroking her hand as I quietly started to tell her all that I’d been up to in the past month. I told her of how startled I’d been at Leon’s first surprise attack. My protection shield had popped into place with such force that it threw him into the opposite wall. He’d been ecstatic.

I described my utter fascination with potions and their fascinating ingredient properties and interactions. I told her about Miss Beth’s sneaky spying history and of learning how to act a deceptive role. And I told her of rune magic. How it entranced me with a powerful allure when I used my blood to power them. The feelings it evoked frightened me, and other things did too, like failing in my task or just simply getting myself killed. I was filled with terror at the thought of facing human-hating vampires, weres, fae, draconians, and who knew what else at the Academy. And I feared even more becoming a monster worse than any of them.

“I wish you could talk and give me some advice, Mom. Heck, I wish you would just wake up period and negate the need for all of this, or at least let me see what’s wrong with you so I have a clue how to heal you.” Saying that gave me an idea though and I quickly closed my eyes, opened them, then opened them again.

The world erupted in flowing colors of lights drifting throughout the room. With the second sight I didn’t just see magical energies, but also the natural energies that existed in all living things. If compared, magic was like water that pooled and collected and flowed into streams around the earth, that we called ley lines, and life energy was like the air that we breathed in. Life energy flowed throughout all living things, providing that little bit of extra oomph that made us live. For magic users, we naturally contained an inner core of that water-like power and by using our will and emotions we could tap into the ley lines around us to refill our reserves or accomplish a more powerful piece of magic, although doing so was dangerous. Raw magic tended to absorb pieces of the world around it, often becoming attuned to a particular element or emotional echo that was especially prevalent. The strength of a magic user depended upon the size of a person’s inner magical channels and which in turn determined the strength of the ley lines they could tap into and filter safely. If one was contrarily aligned to a particular ley line, trying to use its power would become much harder.

In my mom, I could see that there existed in her head a large area that lay in darkness and the natural flow of her life energy seemed to be dammed up behind it, creating a slowly growing pool of life energy next to the dark spot. The sight made my heart leap into my throat as I instinctively realized that the only reason she was still alive right now was because of that excess life energy, but even as it saved her, it was also risky. The energy couldn’t just build up forever, inevitably it would burst, and when that happened, it would most definitely kill her.

* * *

He stared out through the antique glass windowpane at the moonlit grounds of his father’s family Connecticut home, the soft lighting in the room behind him throwing shadows across his coldly handsome face. A cell phone was held up to his ear and he was speaking harshly to the person on the other end, “Johnson, how long are you just going to sit there twiddling your damn thumbs?! We need that bill passed.”

He paused a moment, listening, “I don’t want to hear about your problems Johnson, I just want to know why you’re still letting that bitch Fenton block us at every turn. Fucking handle her already! I don’t care how. Dig up some blackmail on her. Heck, even create some. If you don’t think you can do that, just bury the damn woman. You don’t even have to do it yourself, Giovanni owes me a favor. Whatever you decide, just get it done,” he turned away from the window, letting the rest of the room into his view.

His eyes rested upon a gagged woman bound to his bedposts. The sheets underneath her were dyed red from her blood, and her naked body was an artistic canvas of savage gaping wounds. Her form lay far too still to possibly be still alive, “Don’t fucking screw this up Johnson. You know what I will do to you if you fail.” He drew his other hand up from where it had hung out of sight and slowly licked some of the blood covering it off, a sinister light filling his blue eyes, making them literally glow with power, “Don’t disappoint me Johnson.”

* * *

Several time zones away, on the opposite end of the country, a far different conversation was taking place as Brian Hastings spoke to his superior back in D.C, “Yes, Director Whitman, she’ll be ready in time. So far, she has already exceeded all of our expectations for her. I estimate that by the time the month ends, she’ll be as good as any of our field agents, if a bit lacking in actual practical experience. I think she’s got an actual shot at succeeding here. At the least, she’ll definitely be a match for most of those so-called children at that school. I relish the rude awakening anyone who attacks her will get,” he smirked at the thought as he listened to his boss on the other side of the phone, “Alright sir, I’ll keep you informed. Goodnight, sir.”

A snicker burst from his mouth. God, if the director had been anymore giddy he probably would’ve broken out into a jig. He couldn’t blame him either, Jessica had channeled all her grief and determination into her studies and blown all of their predictions out of the water. If she could manage to keep up that level at school, then she’d be a beast of a mage by the time summer came. And she was planning four years of that. Well, they would at least be making vast returns on their initial investment then. It was too early to think about all that yet though, she still needed to survive her first year. That reminded him of something they still needed to do. He shuffled around the papers around on his desk until he found the manila envelope he’d apparently been looking for, a letter and informational packet sent from the Akademiya’s headmistress. Now he just needed Jessica.

* * *

My trip to the hospital had left me quiet and introspective, so I was glad for the distraction that came in the form of a summons to Mr. Hastings’ office. As I entered, he looked up and waved a sheath of papers at me, “Headmistress Bolormaa finally sent your acceptance papers. We need to check off your class selections and send it back.”

“Does it say what classes I need for what I want to learn?” I asked eagerly.

“They’re actually really well-organized, they’ve provided several suggested class tracks to take depending upon what you want to do after your schooling. You’re going to want the Healer’s Track. It tells you all the prerequisites you’ll need for the first Healing Magic class. Your required classes without any prerequisites include Potions I, Biology, Algebra, Runic Magic, Mind Magic, Thread Magic, and Self-Defense.”

“I’ve already taken biology and algebra. And why is self-defense a required class anyways?” I protested.

“It’s required for all first years. The original founder of the school thought it would be a good idea if the students could protect themselves. They also offer more advanced combative classes that would probably be a good idea for you to take in future years.

“As for biology and algebra… Well, you’ll need biology. I bet your high school biology class didn’t go into how magic and life energy interacted with living things, especially the sometimes very different biology of the other races And we could probably get you tested out of algebra, which would then open up chemistry to you. While you could take seven classes, that’s a lot to take for your first year there. ”

“That still leaves me with one too many classes. Sir, which do you think I should choose?”

“Well you’ll definitely need to take Self-Defense, Biology, Runes and Mind magic this first year, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to take the later classes you’ll need. That leaves you two classes to choose. Chemistry is normally taken second year, so I wouldn’t worry about it yet.”

“I like Potions, so if I take that I’ll have five. That leaves me with Thread Magic for the last slot.”

“Very well. We’ll just check off your choices,” he started writing on the class selection sheet, “and write in your request to be tested out of algebra, and voila, it’s ready to be sent out.” He waved the completed paper with a flourish.

Curious about what other classes I’d need to take in the future, I looked at the rest of the packet still in front of me. Anatomy, Advanced Mind and Rune Magics, my finger followed the suggested class track progression, until it stopped in surprise at one, “Blood magic? I’m surprised that’s a requirement for Advanced Healing.”

“I don’t really know much about blood magic, besides that I use the most basic form of it with my runes. I’ve heard true blood magic can do some pretty advanced stuff, rituals, curses, even body enhancement. I’m not really sure of it’s limits or how much is actually true,” he shrugged helplessly, “I guess you’ll find out when you get there.”

I was disconcerted at the strong pull of desire I felt at the thought of performing blood magic. It couldn’t be healthy to be so attracted to something that many would probably consider to be dark magic, but I couldn’t deny my attraction to the idea of it.