“So, you’ve killed vampires?” asked Rachel.

“Now, don’t go putting words in my mouth,” said the old man, putting his book down and pulling out a ceremonial knife. He was quickly realizing just how little he would get done with this girl around. “What I do is run away from vampires,” he explained. “Not kill them. Though don’t get me wrong, running away from a vampire is a skill in and of itself.”

He took the knife and abruptly jammed it into his shoulder. He must have had plenty of experience being stabbed, as he didn’t even flinch as the steel pierced flesh and blood splattered all over the table.

“Holy shit!” shouted Rachel.

“Relax,” said the old man, raising a hand. “This is nothing compared to what a vampire can come up with.” A blue energy started to pulsate around his fingers, then leapt into the freshly cut wound. For a moment nothing happened. Then the blood on the table started to surge back into his chest, disappearing behind a newly formed layer of skin. Even the cloth on his shirt restitched itself.

“You can teach me that?” asked Rachel.

“Perhaps,” said the old man, brushing a speck of dry blood from his shoulder. “But obviously, we won’t be starting with a shoulder wound. First you have to learn how to harness magical energy.”

“And how do I do that?” asked Rachel, her eyes widening.

“Here, I’ll show you.”

He reached out and took her hand. Rachel felt her fingers retreating, as if by instinct. It was a sensation similar to a mouse encountering a snake. Even if the mouse had never seen a snake before, it knew to stay away.

Rachel could sense something she did not like coming closer.

As soon as the old man’s fingers touched hers, a powerful sensation gripped her, rattling her bones. Her teeth clenched shut. Her body started to shake. She tried hard to pull away, but the old man only tightened his grip, sending more energy into her arm.

“Focus on the sensation,” he said. “Memorize it.” He loosened his grip, and the sensation started to subside somewhat. “Now, I want you to feel the energy in your palm,” he explained. “Imagine you’re holding it. Can you feel it?”

“I think I can,” said Rachel.

At first the pain had no origin, it was simply pain, pain that shot all throughout her body.

But then she felt the sensation slowly concentrating in her palm, as the feeling changed from pain to an intense tingling. She started to close her fingers, as if wrapping her hand around a cold stone. She found that visualizing an object helped her to detect the energy more freely.

“Good,” said the old man. “Now, I want you to try moving that energy up your arm. Imagine you’re tensing a muscle, squeezing it up through your arm.”

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“Alright, I’ll try,” said Rachel.

She found she could move the energy upwards, though slowly, and she could only control it partially. It was like a squirrel running up her arm. She could poke or prod it in the general direction she wanted, but eventually it went wherever it wanted. By the time she managed to get the energy up to her shoulder, almost half an hour had passed.

“This is hard,” she confessed, just now noticing the sweat pouring down her face.

“No, you’re doing well,” said the old man. Now try moving it back and forth between your shoulders.”

Rachel tried to move the energy across her neck, but she felt it continually falling towards her stomach. She could instinctually tell that it would be dangerous to let the energy anywhere near her heart.

“Careful,” said the old man. “If you let the energy pass through your core, it could seriously hurt you. You need better control before you can send it anywhere other than your limbs.”

“How do you even control it?” asked Rachel, her vision blurring. “It has a mind of its own.”

“You say that,” said the old man, stroking his beard. “But you’re making extraordinary progress. Normally it takes weeks just to get it up your arm.”

Rachel considered this for a moment. He may have been lying to boost her confidence, but somehow she knew he was telling the truth, that most people would struggle to do what she was doing right now. Was she secretly a genius? She hoped not. If she was a genius, then anything she accomplished was due to her being born lucky, not because she was persistent or smart.

She didn’t like that explanation. Not one bit.

“Magic has a lot to do with will,” said the old man, as if reading her mind. “Are there any particularly strong emotions that drive you? That could explain your rapid progress.”

“Hatred,” replied Rachel, without any hesitation. Even she was surprised by how fast she responded. And if she could have seen her own eyes in that moment, she would have been even more shocked. Just for a moment, her eyes turned icey and dark. It was just a flash, hardly a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for the old man to notice.

He immediately turned pale.

“Well now,” he said, chuckling nervously. “You really are a curious one. I can’t say I’ve met anyone like you before.”

He watched Rachel for the following two hours, as she shifted the energy from one shoulder to the next. The old man may have seemed distracted, reading a book or working on dinner, but Rachel got the sense he was paying keen attention to her. She decided to show off a little. She tried shifting the energy between her shoulders faster and faster, until she could do it in just over ten minutes.

“Very good,” said the old man, bringing over a bowl of soup. “You’ve gotten much faster. I’d say you’ve earned yourself some dinner.”

“But I want to keep practicing!” protested Rachel. She was excited at the prospect of having a new power to use against the vampires. Just a day ago, she was completely powerless, and now she was channeling magic power through her body. How could she focus on anything other than getting stronger?

“Don't give me that worried look,” said the old man. “I never said we were finished. ” He passed her a spoon. “When you’re in battle, no vampire is going to leave you alone for ten minutes while you conjure the energy you need. You’ll have to learn to do it automatically, while you’re focused on something else. For example, eating some delicious homemade soup.”

Rachel looked down at the soup skeptically. How much concentration could eating soup possibly require, she thought.

But as soon as she tried, she found herself losing track of the energy in her shoulder. Once she looked away, it would vanish, like a poorly behaved dog. And when she focused on the energy, she realized her hand had plunged itself into the soup. She wound up spilling several bowls. It was a good thing the old man seemingly knew this would happen, as he had made plenty extra.

“Don’t rush it,” he said, gently touching her shoulders and lending her more energy. Despite his advice, Rachel felt herself getting increasingly impatient. If evil soup would be too much for her to handle, facing vampires seemed like an utter fantasy. She had to do better.