It was midday by the time he stepped out of the house. And, by then, the waters of the sea before him had swelled up – high tide, great and blue, clear as glass; he was almost tempted to take a dip, honestly. It’d been a very long time since he actually swam for the heck of it.

“We’re going to the... ugh... magic school now?” Gabriel asked, munching on a piece of spam, which had been shaped into a french fry and air-fried to a crisp; he could taste the nitrates and the ridiculous amount of salt each time he chewed. Still, it was good. Gabriel didn’t eat it often, because that’d just be self-sabotage if he did, but it reminded him of the days before he became an assassin; the orphanage always had a large stock of them, among other canned foodstuff, in the cellar.

They stood outside the safe house, the credit and debit cards already safely tucked away in his wallet. The wind blew against him – cool and fresh, unlike the breeze of the city. It was almost peaceful. But Gabriel wasn’t certain if he knew the true meaning of that word.

He didn’t bother with a proper pistol. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d need on the first day of school. The odds of needing it were so low that he deemed it unnecessary. However, he didn't leave unarmed, keeping a Liliput Pistol in his right sleeve. Small enough to forego a holster, it remained easily accessible, ready to be drawn and fired at a moment's notice. While not especially deadly, a shot to the eyeball would likely prove fatal, he surmised, or really anywhere soft, like the neck.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t need it at all.

Blake nodded, grinning. “Yes, but – before that – I’m going to test you, just to see how best I can teach you – never had a student before, after all.”

“What kind of test?” Gabriel raised a brow. A test was understandable; it was the same for every school, after all. This being an academy for... sorcerers, only the finest were probably allowed inside. Their criteria for what the ‘finest’ was, however, eluded him. More than likely, it was something of a violent nature, given the apparent combative nature of his Innate Ability. Or it could be something else entire. But Gabriel felt confident, at least, that he could pass whatever exam Blake had planned for him.

“I’m going to send you after a Minor Monster – it’s pretty weak, so don’t worry - and I want you to kill it using your Innate Ability,” Blake answered plainly. And Gabriel had no choice but to nod. What else was there to do? Besides, this being a test probably meant it wasn’t mortally dangerous; it could be, if he wasn’t careful, but the same could be said for just about everything in life. A car could just as easily kill him if he crossed the road without carefully checking both ways, after all.

A target. Easy enough, Gabriel mused. And his mission was to kill it. This actually didn’t seem all that different from his usual assignments. Still, the fact that he wouldn’t be hunting a human being was honestly kind of... exciting. It sent butterflies fluttering all over his stomach. He’d never really tried hunting before. This must be what it’d feel like, he reckoned. For the first time in a very long time, Gabriel felt... giddy.“What kind of monster?”

Was it going to be a dragon?

He liked dragons?

They were cool.

Actually, he might need a much bigger gun if Blake was thinking of throwing him up against a dragon.

Blake’s grin widened. “Why should I spoil the very nice surprise I planned for you?”

“Well, then,” Gabriel said. He was as ready as he could be. “No time like the present, right?”

“Heh, I knew I picked the right pupil,” Blake said as he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. As before, the world shifted, colors swirling and shapes bending. It wasn’t any less jarring now as it was the first time, but – at the very least – Gabriel didn’t fall to the ground, nauseated; instead, all he got was a slight headache and a severely uncomfortable sensation in his stomach. He shrugged it off and shook his head. Gabriel glanced around and found himself standing in a dirty, trash-littered city-street. There were signs and papers with English words and letters. Tall buildings loomed overhead. Perhaps, the biggest difference was the fact that day had turned into night. He looked up, but did not see stars or anything, really; it was all just black. He breathed in and caught the thick smell of smog and filth in the air.

“This is New York,” Gabriel said with awe and curiosity, but mostly suspicion, because something was definitely not right. He felt it in his bones, a glowering senses of unease. Maybe, he should’ve brought a weapon.

“Yep, it is.” Blake said, walking to the edge of the lonesome street. It was then that Gabriel noted the strange silence of the city, the lack of cars and voices. The only sound he heard was the faint whistling of the wind. Something was wrong here. His eyes narrowed. Blake chuckled. “So, you finally noticed. This is what’s called a Convergent Dominion, a very advanced use of Thread Energy that enforces the user’s will upon reality; very few Thread Sorcerers can use it. I’m one of them. This particular example seems to superimpose an empty dimension over realspace, allowing the caster to pluck out and isolate potential victims from realspace.”

“Am I hunting a sorcerer, then?” Gabriel asked. That was a... daunting prospect. Not impossible, probably, but it’d definitely be extremely difficult. He knew almost nothing about Thread Energy, after all. Motion seemed like a very powerful ability, but the same could be true for whatever ability his opponent might wield against him. Then again, based on Blake’s description, its advantage of surprise ceased to exist the moment they forcefully entered its Convergent Dominion.

“No,” Blake shook his head and raised a hand. “Remember this: Convergent Dominions are nearly-impossible for most Thread Sorcerers, but every single Fae can make use of it on a whim – some are stronger than others, but they can all do it. Only a handful of Thread Sorcerers can make use of a Convergent Dominion and I’m one of them.”

“Fae....” Gabriel repeated, frowning. And then, it dawned on him and his frown deepened. “You want me to kill a fairy?”

Blake shook his head. “Technically, every magical or otherwise supernatural creature that doesn’t fall under Heaven or Hell, and is generally bound to Earth, can be considered a Fae – and that includes Vampires, which is what you’ll be hunting. An actual Fairy would turn you inside-out before you could even think to kill it.”

“A vampire....” Gabriel repeated, brows furrowed. He’d read enough books and seen enough movies to know what they were – at least, relative to humanity’s perception of them. But reality could be very different; he knew that, more than anyone. So, vampires existed, but it was entirely possible that the nature of their being differed quite significantly from their fictional counterparts. He had to be ready for that. Engaging a foe he knew nothing about was never a good idea, but he would adapt. He always did.“Does that mean-”

“Yes, werewolves exist,” Blake chuckled. “And no, Dracula isn’t real – not as a vampire, at least. Vampires have a very extensive history; you can read it in the library once we get to the academy. You’ll have to, since they’re one of the things you’ll have to learn how to properly kill.”

“Understood,” Gabriel said, nodding.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Anyway,” Blake said, turning and making come hither motions with his fingers. So, Gabriel shrugged and followed. They walked out of the empty alley and into a similarly empty street. There were cars on the road, their engines still growling, but no drivers behind the wheel. There were open restaurants and roadside food stalls, but no people. It was almost eerie. And there was a strange smell in the air, a scent Gabriel had never caught before. Blake walked ahead onto the opposite side of the road. “This way. I’m taking you to the site.”

Gabriel followed closely behind him, crossing the quiet stretch of pavement. Blake led him to a rundown building that was... in the middle of an intersection. It was short – much shorter than all the other buildings around it at only ten or so floors. Its walls had the appearance of rusted metal, covered in grime and soot and dirt, its coppery scent filling the air, accompanied by the stench of rot and death and decay, emanating from within the structure itself. There was a presence there, Gabriel felt, a hungering malevolence. He breathed in as Blake turned and faced him. “Well, it’s inside that spooky place. Your job is to find it and kill it. Of course, you’ll have to use motion, because mundane weapons don’t exactly work on supernatural monsters.”

Gabriel nodded. “Is there a time limit?”

“No,” Blake shook his head. He then held out his hand towards the building, before snapping his fingers. A brief shimmer overtook the structure, a sudden flux of colors and shapes that disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Take as much time as you want and need. I’ve made sure that monster isn’t going anywhere.”

Of course, Gabriel did not just walk right in. That would’ve been downright stupid. Instead, he walked around the building, checking its perimeter, searching every crack and crevice for anything amiss, but he found nothing out place. The whole thing was monotonous to the extreme. Each face of the building was identical to the others, each one having an entrance of its own, while each floor had approximately ten windows. Soon enough, he found himself right back to where he started. Blake chuckled. “Lemme guess... you didn’t see anything worth mentioning, right?”

“Nope,” Gabriel shook his head. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he circled the building, honestly, but it still was something he needed to do. Gabriel wouldn’t be alive in that moment if he lacked a sense of caution or just common sense; scouting out a target’s general vicinity was something every assassin had to do before actually engaging. Even with ‘Motion’, giving him nigh-infinite range, it was always better to be absolutely certain of all the odds. “I didn’t find anything.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Blake said, shrugging. “This here is a very crude domain; I wouldn’t expect too much out of it. Still, you’re dealing with a fully-grown nosferatu; don’t underestimate it.”

“Got it.”

Tsk. He really didn’t have much of a choice, did he? There was an entrance over there. The only thing he could do was walk right in. And so he did. Breathing in, Gabriel made his way forward and stepped right through the doorway. The smell that greeted him was vile in the extreme. It was akin to the stench produced by piles upon piles of rotting corpses, drenched in human fluids and feces. There was something filthy here. Funny. When Blake mentioned a vampire, Gabriel had imagined an aristocratic monster with a human face and pale skin, living in a dark castle, attended to by undead maidens and a legion of the damned.

This wasn’t it.

Well, reality was often different from expectations.

Gabriel swung his right hand down, activating the mechanism that slid the tiny pistol into his grasp. A knife wouldn’t been useful to have as well, but getting close to a possibly supernatural monster that could rip him apart was the last thing he was going to try if he could help it. He’d never been good at melee and the number of times he’d ever engaged an enemy in hand-to-hand combat could be counted on one hand. And he would’ve died each time if he hadn’t shot them when he had the chance.

The interior of the first floor was... empty. It was dark and filled with shadows, but there were no shapes or objects. The whole place was devoid of anything, save for a flight of stairs to the left. Gabriel bent low, half-crouching as he walked forward, his steps light and quiet. Though, he’d openly admit to the fact that stealth had never been his strong suit; he was, in fact, terrible at it. The undersides of every footwear he owned was softened for this very reason.

Well, I’m as quiet as I possibly could be. With nothing in the first floor, Gabriel proceeded up the second. Once again, it was empty, just like the first one had been. The difference was that this floor had office cubicles that were also empty. Beyond that, there was a whole load of nothing – empty. So, Gabriel walked up the stairs and, once again, the next floor was empty; the same was true for the one that came after that and the one that came after that.

“Where the hell is it?” Gabriel muttered under his breath as he walked up the stairs to the seventh floor, the Liliput Pistol still firmly in his grasp. As he reached the top of the steps, however, his eyes widened and his hand snapped up to take aim. There was a... thing there, barely humanoid. Its ashen gray skin seemed to pale in the darkness, but the faint light that streamed from the windows revealed the creature for what it truly was. Foul ripping and tearing and squelching noises echoed in the shadow as it fed on the body of a man, torn to shreds, entrails scattered and bones hanging about. The carcass in its grasp could hardly be recognized as human, but Gabriel recognized it, because – as terrible as the scene before him was – he’d seen worse.

It didn’t look strong and neither was it particularly muscular. The vampire was an emaciated thing with shrunken black eyes, knife-shaped ears, and shark-like teeth. Its limbs were long and lanky, joints bulging and jutting outwards, accompanied by highly-defined ribs and the stench of a thousand rotting corpses.

This was supposed to be a vampire?

“Disappointing,” Gabriel whispered to the wind.

He was terrible at melee and he was even worse at stealth, but there was one area in the business of dealing corpses that Gabriel excelled in – more than any other.

“Motion.” Energy surged from within him as it always did. It began with a slight tingle in his forehead, followed by a stream of warmth from his chest. And then, the warmth reverberated into his limbs, spreading into each of his fingers until, finally, it exited his body altogether and entered the gun in his grasp. From the gun, it wrapped itself around the bullet. Gabriel pulled the trigger and unleashed a 4.25mm slug right towards the hellish creature that lay crouched a mere ten feet away.

The bullet surged across the open air, unhindered by gravity or drag – inviolable inertia. The creature did not stir, even as the round pierced through its shrunken black eye and out of its skull, splattering a tar-like liquid all over the floor and the wall behind it. The creature fell backward, its mouth agape as it shuddered and drew its last breath. It stopped moving after a moment.Gabriel’s eyes narrowed as he rushed forward and put two more bullets right through its head for good measure.

Was it dead?

It looked dead.

“Was that it?” He muttered, frowning as he kept his eye on the gruesome cadaver of the first supernatural beast he’d ever slain. Doubtful, Gabriel sent a kick right into the vampire’s head. It still didn’t move. So, that was it. The monster was dead. “Huh... that was easy.”

So, the test was done, right?

“Thread Sorcerer....” A voice echoed from the dark behind him. Gabriel’s eyes widened for a moment before he rolled forward, over his shoulder, and whirled back, taking aim with the liliput. He pulled the trigger, firing two bullets – neither of them infused with Motion. Standing there over the carcass of the vampire he’d just killed was a tall, well-dressed man in a white suit, with long black hair and pale skin, eyes glowing like coals in a forge. The man frowned, briefly revealing a pair of silvery fangs. The bullets slid off the man’s forehead and clattered onto the ground.“He was a newborn... yet incapable of rational thought; ten more humans and he would’ve regained his senses. You killed a child of mine, Sorcerer.”

Three bullets left.

“Sorry about that.” Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. Extrapolating purely from what he heard, the man before him was a ‘mature’ vampire and that ugly thing on the ground was a newborn – a newly-turned vampire, perhaps? Tsk, did Blake just set him up against two supernatural monsters on his first day? “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t an actual Thread Sorcerer?”

The mature vampire sniffed the air, frowning. He then spat on the floor. “You expect me to believe they’d send a mere pupil against me? I am no fool.”

It took a single step forward towards him and Gabriel took an absent step back.

Maintain distance.

“Oh well,” Gabriel rolled to the side and muttered, “Motion.”

The Thread Energies coalesced around the next bullet. The vampire chuckled darkly, striding on with absolute confidence. “Human weapons won’t even scratch my skin, fool.”

“I know,” As he stood up off the ground, Gabriel pulled the trigger and fired a single bullet.

The vampire grunted as the Liliput’s tiny round tore an inch-wide hole through his neck. The humanoid monster fell to a knee, eyes wide in shock and anger as black blood came spilling from the open wound. Gabriel leveled the pistol’s sights over the vampire’s forehead. Hislips parted, ready to utter the words of power as he’d done before, but – before he could – the vampire blurred forward, grabbed Gabriel by the neck, and launched him right out the window.

“Shit!”