Chapter 33: Feeling Magic In The Air And The Blood

--- Coraline Hawkins ---

Much like with the amulet she’d briefly borrowed during the convention, she could feel a sort of cool warmth emanating from the foci she was wearing. The accumulated magic giving off a feeling that would be comforting regardless of the actual temperature surrounding it.

She knew that it had been too long for it to be true, but part of her imagined that that feeling was from her mom, a remnant of her own magic left inside of the focus for her to find.

“Do you… can you feel it?” Her dad asked her cautiously after she’d spent just a little too long basking in the feeling.

“Y-yeah.” She nodded, forcing her focus away from the magic in her necklace no matter how much it wanted her attention.

“Good now, the next step is the… trickiest part.” Her dad told her, not knowing that she’d done all of this before. “You need to sort of will the Anima into doing what you want. You’re… you’re not quite at the level where you can just pull it straight out of your focus, so you need to pull it through your own body and sort of… gather it into your hands.”

She closed her eyes before focusing on the cool warmth and trying to move it from the pendant around her neck, into her chest, up her shoulders, and down her arms. Only as the magic began to pass through her bicep she felt the black wreath there begin to tighten, reminding her of how she’d betrayed his trust.

(For something you always wanted though.) A dark voice tried to defend.

(No. It wasn’t right. I… I shouldn’t have done it.) She told herself, remembering how she’d found Micki with a piece of rebar through her side. (It wasn’t worth it…)

The wreath grew even tighter with that admission, and she deserved it.

Her acceptance caused the pain to pass, even as the voice tried to argue that, (There’s nothing wrong with living for yourself…)

Which she knew but… (I’m not that selfish.)

(...)

“You’ve almost got it.” Her dad assured her as she began to struggle with pushing the magic the last little bit, moving it having become twice as difficult as it passed her wreath. “Alright, let me help you the last little bit.”

Her dad took her hands and clapped them between his own where she felt the faintest bits of his own comforting magic begin to build, nowhere near as much as she was trying to control but definitely enough to make the last few inches from her forearms to her hands so much easier.

“Okay, now… just let that build for a moment.” He told her, releasing her hands as she felt her own magic beginning to pool within them. “And when you think you’ve got enough, toss it into the air.”

She gave it another moment, but when it felt like the magic she’d built was beginning to leak through her fingers she did as he said and tossed the magic she’d built up as high as she could.

“You know this is the part where you’re supposed to open your eyes.” Her dad pointed out.

She knew that, she was just a little reluctant in case she’d messed it up. (Though he doesn’t sound like I did.)

Ever so slowly she opened her eyes before they shot wide open upon seeing an entire galaxy of light motes floating all around her. An effect that was all the more prominent as her dad had turned off the actual lights, leaving them to float in the otherwise dark.

And upon seeing the effects of her first successful spell, she couldn’t help but smile as she felt elation spread through her at the wondrous sight around her.

(I wonder if this is how everyone else feels using magic?)

--- Aurelio Hermenez —

“Is it… is it supposed to… feel like my… my blood is boiling?” He wondered, feeling a building heat slowly burn through his veins.

(That would be the feeling of the Malice within your blood burning the physical to empower the metaphysical.) Jerry explained in a way that told him nothing.

“Right, uh… can you uh, elaborate?” He asked as his heart beat so hard that he could feel it throughout his entire body, each pulse feeling him with a power just begging to be let loose.

(This is one of those flawed points with the Old Blood.) Jerry admitted. (While blood itself can be used to conduct magic with an abnormally high compatibility, it unfortunately lacks a true storage capacity. So during my attempts to fix this problem I discovered that energy conversion leant itself more towards Malice than Anima. This mixing is actually why so many Arcane fear that they’ll lose their magic upon turning because while the systems can mirror each other in function they are notably different once dissected. Though not so much that you can’t-)

“Jerry… less magic lesson… more medical diagnoses?” He pleaded, having to fight himself just to keep from twitching and lashing out as the heat continued to build and everything around him grew so painfully loud and bright.

(Oh, apologies…) The vampire’s shadow blinked. (Um, yes the heat is normal, and the reason it feels like it’s building is because you are building the energy up without using it. You’ll notice that this occurs both during both prolonged usage and greater feats. As time goes on it’ll become less uncomfortable, the discomfort is due to your transitionary phase.)

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“And uh, how do I… fix it?” He gasped, having already tried turning off the power Jerry had shown him in the middle of her little explanation only to find the heat was still there.

(You’ll have to use the power.) Jerry’s shadow shrugged, looking as uncomfortable as a shadow could. (Just… focus on pushing the heat out, willing it to move.)

He nodded, not really able to focus on anything but the heat, before trying to picture it moving in his head. An act that while not fully successful he could feel do something to the heat.

So he tried again and again, the heat moving through his body, even beyond his body in a couple of instances, but always returning back to him before he could cool off.

“This… isn’t working… Jerry…” He whimpered, sweat beginning to drip off his face.

Geraldine’s shadow watched him for a moment before telling him to, (Push the heat into me. Not into the air but into this shadow.)

He closed his eyes and grit his teeth before willing the heat into her shadow, and like his previous attempts to move the heat it did as he asked. Only unlike the other times the heat did not return, letting him actually feel the cold air of his apartment wash over him.

“Oh… that’s so much better…” He practically moaned in relief, just basking in the room temperature air.

“It really is.” A voice commented, both in his head and not really.

He opened his eyes and found a familiar beautiful pale woman examining her own limbs.

“Jerry?” He frowned, wondering what exactly was going on.

“Yes?” The woman smiled at him, confirming that she was in fact his personal poltergeist. His extremely hot poltergeist.

He decided that now was a good time to drink one of those blood bags, and if that wasn’t enough a couple glasses of water too.

--- Miles Kennedy ---

It took him a while -a lot longer than he was comfortable with given the setting sun- but eventually he managed to figure out that there was in fact a difference between the cool warmth inside of him and the comforting coolness surrounding him. One that went beyond the difference between his body temp and the cool night air breeze.

There was a slight hum to each as he listened, the one inside a calm and familiar thrum as if he’d heard it all his life, while the one outside was more the absence of sound just waiting to echo whatever was thrown to it. And that was something they both had in common, they were both waiting for the song to begin, to really cut loose.

But regardless of all that, once he figured it out, he figured it out.

Drawing the coolness towards him was easy, far easier than trying to sense it in the first place.

(“Careful, don’t want to call on more of that than ya can handle.”) Kriminel warned him, the Baron’s appearance more easily flashing within his mind.

He inhaled, noticing how the cool air had a sort of sweet tartness to it before exhaling and letting the coolness drift away from him.

“Alright, I think I’ve got it.” He nodded to both himself and Kriminel. “Now the question is what do I do with it?”

(“There’s lots of things ya can do.”) The Baron answered, his mental image of the man leaning against the crypts and pulling out a cigar. (“Now before we go much further ya need to understand what exactly it is I’m teaching ya.”)

“Voodoo, right?”

(“Voodoo is a religion.”) Kriminel told him slowly with an unimpressed glare. (“It came from Africa and spread out with the slave trade takin’ on different flavors with each land it touched, be it the Haitian vodou, the Brazilian vodun, and more infamously Lousiana Voodoo. There are differences between each but there’s also a lot of overlap for the regional denominations.”)

“Okay…” He nodded. “Um… are you expecting me to convert?”

Admittedly, he was in a bit of gray area with that having discovered that the Barons and other deities were real, but with Jesus also apparently being real and active he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do that. Especially since all of his family would still be doing their christian stuff.

(“Don’t need ya to. We worked out a thing long ago since we aren’t greedy since it’s more about respect for us than worship. Fair number of our people still see themselves as Catholic which is fine. After all, like I said, it’s more about respect for us.”) The Baron explained lighting his cigar.

“And I’m guessing that ‘thing’ is how you know the, uh, J-man?” He was going to be tripping on that all night.

Kriminel snapped his fingers and pointed his fingers at Miles as he inhaled before exhaling a cloud of smoke. (“That and like I said before, Death deities got more… professionalism than the other deities. We’ve usually got our priorities straight rather than mucking about with all that mortal bullshit.”)

The Baron suddenly shook his head. (“Yer getting me off track again… The point of all this is that Hoodoo -the folk magic used by Voodoo’s various rootworkers- is what I’ll be teaching ya. In reference to that magic girlfriend of yers, it’ll be a mix of their shamanism, necromancy, and ritualism.”)

“Okay…” He was a little iffy about some of that, but from what he knew (Shamanism doesn’t sound too bad.) “What are we starting with?”

(“Self possession.”) Kriminel smiled.

“Uh, come again?” He blinked.

(“Self-possession, is when ya open up yer soul to the Necro and let a spirit possess ya. Allowin’ them to more easily act in the mortal world.”) Kriminel explained, his smile never leaving.

“Yeah… let’s skip this lesson.” He told the Baron with narrowed eyes, nowhere near stupid enough to let the first murderer possess him.

(“Ah, I figured ya’d say somethin’ like that.”) Kriminel admitted as he tossed his cigar to the side.

Not that that did anything to diminish the Baron’s smile.

“You… don’t sound disappointed.” He noticed with no small amount of wariness.

Kriminel started to walk towards him. (“Well, little somethin’ I forgot to tell ya about the Necro while ya were sittin’ there for so long yer legs ‘ve gone numb.”)

He realized his legs were both asleep after being crossed for so long and stumbled to try and move them, realizing that whatever was happening he was probably going to need to run.

(“Ya see, the dead, they get kind of restless… So they instinctively go lookin’ for Necro to help them keep it together or to let them move on. And I’m feelin’ a bit slow but…”) Kriminel crouched down beside him. (“What’ve we been playin’ around with again?”)

He froze as he heard the sound of stone grinding against stone, his eyes immediately jumping to the crypts as they began to open.