“Oh, Mary…” I gasped in astonishment. “What have you done? Oh, no, why?”

Tedet turned back to look at me, his face was slightly splashed with droplets of blood. He smeared scarlet trays over his pants while turning around. He said nothing and shrugged with his eyes.

“What you did…” I continued, “he knew about Jaser. We could’ve pried it from him. Or who he works for.”

“They will never speak,” he said, his tone neutral. “They are predators without a will of their own. They eat and kill, that’s their nature.”

“We could’ve given him an option--”

“To betray his Parent? No.”

I hate it when other people are right. I hate it more when I want to say they are wrong when they clearly made the wrong choice but their post hoc reasoning is somewhat sound, or, at least, sound enough for me to not be able to refute it. If there was something I hate about Tedet -- and I can say for certain, for all alchemists -- is that he’s mostly logical. It’s frustrating to be emotionally riled up but get backed into a logical corner. You have your brains and heart in conflict with each other.

“We’ll find your nephew,” he said. “Don’t think too much about scum.”

I grunted and said: “I’m not happy.”

“I understood that one,” he said and nodded.

“I was emphasizing.”

We walked to the entrance of the arcade in complete silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, it was a mutually accepted one. I wasn’t in the mood to have a chit-chat and the alchemist would rather keep to himself. At the very least we agreed on this one point. We don’t want to talk to each other yet.

However, just before turning around beyond some arcade machines, I felt a tingle at the back of my nose. It was almost like feeling a sneeze coming. The one problem with feeling like sneezing is that it triggers in me a moment of fear. When other people would not mind the sneeze coming, for me it could be a warning. Normally, when in alert I would not feel the tingle, but a pervasive sensation on my skin, like a chill or goosebumps, but not quite. However, this time the tingle made me aware that danger could be close.

“Wait,” I spoke and grabbed Tedet’s arm. He stopped, turned around, and almost hissed at me and pulled his arm away, but I continued before he could. “I sense something…”

Tedet relaxed for a second before tensing up again. His arm wasn’t covered by his shirt so I could feel his rough and hard skin. It felt like ultra-fine sandpaper. In other circumstances, that sensation would’ve given me chills and made me release my grip in tactile disgust, but my body was filled with adrenaline due to the danger awareness, so I barely cared.

“What is it?” he asked and stepped back to make sure he stayed behind an arcade machine.

“I don’t know, but they aren’t hiding like the torviela did. I feel them…” I stopped for a second. “Yes, maybe a couple.”

“Torviela?” he asked, but not for confirmation. He was asking if I agreed with his conclusion.

“I imagine so,” I said.

“In broad daylight?”

“The sun is behind the arcade,” I turned back to where the torviela had exploded. “Must be Mr. Sunshine’s friends, probably.” I heard a low crackling coming from Tedet, so I answered with a small snort.

“Shall we?” he asked.

“Maybe we should interrogate them this time,” I answered

“Maybe we should get what we want,” he said.

“All you think is violence.”

“I also think about time and efficiency,” he said turning around to see me.

“It could work,” I said. “But we have to do it quickly.”

“Take one guy, get rid of the other,” he explained.

I thought for a second what I could do, but my actions were limited to blow one of them away into the stratosphere, incinerate one of them into their constituent elements, or… cheer Tedet on. Any other option would make me an obstacle.

“I’ll get rid of one,” I proposed.

“Then that means I’ll take the other down.”

“Take him down?” I asked.

“I’m thinking on something non-lethal,” he said.

I stared at him expressionlessly. “That’s a first.”

I readied my magic and will. Magic is controlled by a user thanks to their will. Who said thinking hard about something will never make it happen? That’s what we do. We have to be convinced that what we’re about to do will happen like it was a fact. Imagine what is going to happen and then just make it happen. I imagine a flamethrower coming out of my hand and I will get to see a leech turn into charcoal.

What’s the incantation for? It is not needed. Magic can be done without changing anything, but it is helpful. When you say things your mind concentrates on the ideas. When you have a word that expresses something, your mind imagines that for a moment. It’s a way to make your will your reality. It’s not like your magic novels. No spell uses a code word for it, and each user makes what is most comfortable for them. It doesn’t even have to be a language, and it can also be just random noises, but words have their own way of creating a reality in your mind since they are already associated with reality itself.

Of course, you can just shout “fireball” and have a sphere of plasma hurl from your palms, but that’s not stylish. I like style (and many other wizards do, too). So we get to be fancy and use Latin, Hebrew, Egyptian, Nordic, and many other languages for spells. I’m a proud user of Latin, even if it is the most widely used language. I’ve heard Sioux and Quechua, and I thought that was awesome. I’ve heard Japanese and I thought it was… confusing. I must admit I’ve watched some anime, and I’m not a fan of Japanese to make real people be crushed under the ground they're standing on. It’s confusing. You’d understand.

So when I was ready to hurl my flamethrower I thought of the one Latin word that fitted best the idea and prepared myself to roast some torviela. I nodded towards Tedet and when he stepped out I quickly followed behind him and spotted two human figures waiting outside.

Sweet Mary, I thought, my will still focusing on the fire. Are they human or… But before I could continue thinking I saw the one on the right turn to his side to watch us and I could see the predatorily gaze on his eyes before they became startled. Vampires!

“Flamma!” I screamed and a jet of fire burst from my outstretched palm. The vampire was dressed in a tuxedo and looked really sharp before he was consumed by the flames. It moved just an instant before the fire got to him, but it wasn’t enough for it to escape. The momentum it build up while trying to escape made it fly away from the jet stream of plasma completely engulfed in flames and screaming, and fell to the floor trying to escape from the heat and the pain. It rolled and tumbled aimlessly while still screaming in agony before it could no longer do so, but still kept struggling for safety.

I felt guilty for a moment just before it ceased moving.

I bet Tedet would not feel anything from this, and as I thought that I saw the guy kicking the vampire on the leg. The vampire managed to jump back but not before the residual energy of the kick pushed the air around it and changed the vampire's position mid-air, making it fall facing down. The vampire swiftly used its arms and legs to get in a prowling position as it fell, just like a cat would. Not good, not good, not good, I thought. And it took the vampire that much time to launch itself towards Tedet.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I went blind the next moment. My eyes saw a blinding white light and I shot my eyes to cover myself from it. I heard a hissing scream of agony from what I thought was the vampire. I was still blind for a few more seconds before my eyes finally managed to see barely beyond the burned white image, residue to what I thought was a flash grenade.

Tedet held the vampire down and bent the concrete below him with alchemy to hold the vampire by its arms, legs, and head. The vampire could not escape from that. Even if leeches have inhuman or “inradera” strength, when there’s no leverage to use that power to its fullest potential, they were as vulnerable as any other creature. Lying flat against the ground with its limbs stretched out to every cardinal point made the vampire’s strength useless against the small, impromptu, concrete handcuffs.

The creature still tried to escape, no matter how futile it was. And it became much more desperate in its attempts as I walked closer.

Tedet squatted next to the vampire and spoke softly, I could barely listen in.

“Well, well,” he mocked. “A vampire.”

“Mortal,” the vampire spat in disgust.

“Tell me,” he continued, ignoring the hatred. “What are two vampires doing working with a torviela?”

The vampire grunted and looked intently at Tedet.

“Do I have to repeat myself, or should I give you a little incentive?”

I must admit I’m useless in these kinds of situations. I’m not good at threatening. Mostly because I’m bad at following up the threats, I’m a pacifier for the most part. I can scare people, I can hurt bad guys, and I can mostly just intimidate mortals. But when it comes to the supernatural my moral compass doesn’t allow me to just kill in cold blood.

“Go ahead and kill me,” the vampire said. “It doesn’t matter to me what you do. And if I’m gone, you won’t get anything from me.”

“Fine by me,” Tedet said and he pulled a battery from his right leg pouch. Then he drew his fist up and I began panicking. I needed to find my nephew.

“Whoa, whoa!” I shouted. “Stop! Ted! Don’t do it!”

“This again?”

“We lose him; we lose my nephew,” I whispered.

“For the time being…” he interrupted.

I’m beginning to get frustrated about how useless I can be at these critical moments. We have the guy with information right in front of us and I can’t decide what to do. But there has to be something I can do about it.

Dammit. I will have to try to threaten the damn leech and hope he becomes scared enough for its life to tell us something. However, I must make it convincing that I will definitely wreck his life… or the last moments of it.

I concentrate on my palm and start thinking of fire. A flame, big enough to burst from my palm but not too big to get out of control. Fire is tricky. It’s easy to use recklessly, but hard to control. Fire is linked to almost all fundamental properties of nature, all the scientific and supernatural ones. Related to purity and creation, related to stars, the big bang, and just about anything else that exists; fire is heat, and there’s heat in everything, molecules juggling is heat. Easy to think, easy to conjure. But fire can easily spread its heat and catch on to other things, sometimes it’s unpredictable how it will react with just about anything it has contact with. Fire is dangerous and fascinating. That’s why humans were attracted to it during our beginnings and why it’s the first type of magic wizards learn to control.

Fire. Flames. Plasma. Heat. I will it over my palm and beginning closing into the vampire. I make my best poker face, and just tweak it a little with irritation, frustration, and impatience. I kneel to let the vampire look at my face.

“You have something I need, and you will give it to me,” I said. This is when the threat starts. And let’s hope this guy is just a tiny bit egoistic. I show him my palm and the flames burst out violently, it almost caught my face. I didn’t flinch, I had to act like I didn’t care. That’s a wizard for you, a good actor. “I’m not going ask for it. You’re going to give it to me.”

“Or you’re going to burn me?” he asked and almost spat on my feet.

“Very, very slowly,” I hissed, and moved my hand to his face.

“I know who you are,” he began. “I don’t think you have the guts, Wizard Edwhite Avarez.”

That almost made burn his face off. Make it melt and bubble, let it blister and cook with a high-temperature fire. But I just couldn’t let myself do it.

“That’s right, wizard, cower,” he kept mocking. “You are too emotional and moral,” he almost threw up saying the word, “too arrogant in your laws and norms of the world to do something to me.”

My face must have turned red with anger because I could feel the heat coming out of it, but it was hard to say with the fire so close. My anger must have been visible, even palpable, because the vampire was looking at me smugly.

“Oh, I don’t think you understand,” said Tedet behind him. “I’ve learned something about humans so far.” He walked next to me. “They are very irrational and stupid in some subjects.”

I wanted to glower and retort but I had to keep an act.

“And if there’s one subject they go crazy, insane, about is family,” he said and croaked. He was amused. Or at least that’s how imagined him because I couldn’t see him. Although, I doubt that watching him would’ve made me sure of it, anyway. “And they really do go insanely irrational. They’ll do anything.” He emphasized the last word. “I don’t think you understand. It might be because you’ve turned into a leech, but he’s talking about his nephew’s whereabouts. And we think you know.”

The face of the vampire moved from Tedet’s feet to my face and I swear I could see the metaphorical blood metaphorically drain from his literal face. I almost smiled at that; I had to keep the act.

“So,” I began concluding Tedet’s monologue. “What’s it going to be, vampire?”

Given the choice, it was interesting to see how he didn’t bask in the shower of free will we were raining on him like a desert in a decade-long drought. But the most amazing thing was that he just kept quiet. No denial, no retort, no begging, and no bean spilling. He was just looking at me with eyes wide open. Straight at me. Straight at my eyes. Uh oh.

Nothing good comes from looking at people straight in the eyes. For normal mortals, eye staring comes with many benefits and no counter effects. Looking at your lover straight in the eye gives you a connection beyond the natural. You’ve felt it before; as if something is happening. For a father, looking at their child for the first time when they open their eyes is another supernatural experience. Children have power, and there’s nothing stronger than the bond of blood and soul between a parent and their children. Some say it the Powers of Creation at work at that very important moment, but most of us name it love.

But when someone that controls the threads of power, the supernatural energies, is looking at someone straight in the eyes, it does something more than just make you feel tingly and bubbly. It’s called Soul Gazing. Technically speaking, it happens with everyone in different levels of power, but knowing how to use the powers that weaves us all to reality gives soul gazing an extra oomph. With it, you can see the real person behind those eyes, and they can see back at you.

My eyes stared at the vampire and, before the link began, I cut it off in a fit of frustration and the fire reacted to it, it became wild. Not good, not good, not good. How was I supposed to take the information from him, now? It’s threatening soul gazing, trying to see how he can use me by getting into my head--

Aha! So that’s how it is, I thought and decided to do something that isn’t particularly good. But we’re also talking about a vampire. Wizards shouldn’t kill normal mortals, nor should we use dark magic to control them and mess with their heads. But we’re talking about a vampire. Fine then.

All wizards get taught about dealing with mind magic to defend against it. It’s part of the novice crash course. Mind Magic 101: You must know how it works to learn how to counter it. In other words: if you know how to fly a plane, you know how to emergency land it. And because my powers are wild and unrestrained most of the time, my mind isn’t defended by a mental safe box or a castle, that kind of precision isn’t possible for me. My mind is defended by wild and natural phenomena, most likely. Below the deepest sea, under a volcano, inside the Earth’s mantle, on beyond outer space on Mars, inside the Sun’s corona. It must be wild inside it, and I wish I could have an artist take a look to draw it for me. All I’ve had are people telling me how scary it is to try to bring down my mind. They’ve done it, but the more I learn the scarier it got for them. Ever since I graduated from my course, every wizard who has attempted to get me has refused to train with me again.

Now it was my time to try it on the field.

“If you won’t tell me…” I said and I let the fire die out.

Or so I thought, the flame didn’t reduce in size or even poofed out of existence. It began thrashing like a living being holding out to dear life, giving its last energies trying to escape its fate. The flame grew but its heat diminished as it did, and then it was gone in a spectacle. It was kind of fitting. Fire shouldn't just die out. Fire was almost like life itself.

“I will take it from you.” I reached with the hand that used to hold the flame and slammed it into its face with as much force as I could. I didn’t care if I broke its neck, because I knew I wouldn’t and because I couldn’t care less about its feelings.

The vampire snarled and screamed this time. Breaking the silence and its emotionless face for the first time. “WIZARD!”

“WHERE’S MY NEPHEW!” I screamed and I forced myself into its head.

I felt myself being swallowed by its face and it began covering my whole vision, including my peripheral. I was surrounded by a still picture of its snarling face that got distorted as it grew in size and stretched out all around me.

And then I found myself surrounded by a dark forest. Black, dying, leafless trees all around me over black, dry, and bare soil, under a starless night. The blood moon was huge, looming over me at the zenith. A gentle mist barely let me see beyond seven meters, but it did let the black, night sky through.

Somewhere, I heard the screams of a monster, and as I turn around to see where it came from I saw the dirt path below me continue in the direction of the distant growl.

I didn’t see anything, but I was imagining a big, gloomy mansion at the end of the road, surrounded by an old, rusty, black fence, and over a cliff that ended at a black sea that stretched out into the horizon. My imagination added the clichéd lightning over the thundering clouds above it.

And I was very surprised that my imagination was very close to what I saw when I reached my destination. There was no cliff, and there were no thunder clouds. But there was a gate, there was a hill, and there were… bat clouds. And a graveyard.

“Sweet Mary,” I said in surprise. “This feels even more clichéd than what I had imagined.”