The Vampire's Apprentice

Alain stared at her, taken aback by her sudden declaration.

"Magic…?"

Sable rolled her eyes. "Yes, magic. Come on, after everything we've been through, the realization that magic exists is enough to make you confused?"

"No, no, it's not that. Really, it's more like… how am I supposed to learn actual, real-life magic?"

"Because I'll be teaching you, for one," she explained. "Now come sit at the desk, would you?"

"Uh, okay," Alain said. Sable gestured for him to take a seat, and he did, settling into the chair in front of the desk. As he did so, Sable slid over a piece of parchment paper from the nearby stack, along with a pen and inkwell.

"Listen carefully, because this is important," Sable began. "For the most part, magic has to be cast using a catalyst of some kind."

"A catalyst…?" Alain echoed. "What, like a wand?"

To his surprise, Sable nodded emphatically. "Yes, like a wand. Unfortunately, making a wand takes time – you can't just go to a store and buy one. Generally speaking, a wand has to be created by imbuing something sentimental with magical energy."

"That… doesn't make much sense," Alain pointed out. "If using magic in the first place requires a catalyst, and magic itself can't be cast without a catalyst… well, then it seems like we'd be kind of stuck."

"And ordinarily, you'd be correct. But there's a way around it."

Sable reached past him, then picked up the pen and dipped it into the inkwell before beginning to scrawl it across the page. Alain stared at what she was doing for a moment before he frowned, his brow furrowing.

"Your handwriting is awful," he admitted. "It looks like you're just drawing scribbles. Didn't they teach you how to write the language over there? I mean, you did live in Europe."

Sable rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up. Learning to speak English fluently was bad enough, now I have to listen to you critique the way I write it, too?"

"I'm just saying-"

"Well, don't. And besides, these aren't even words I'm writing, they're symbols."

Alain squinted, then leaned in for a closer Sure enough, Sable hadn't been writing out actual words, but rather had been making small drawings on the paper. Again, Alain's brow furrowed.

"...It looks almost like Egyptian hieroglyphics," he said.

Sable paused, then turned to him in surprise. "...You all know about those?"

"Uh, yeah? They were just discovered by westerners around the beginning of the century, if I remember right. I saw some pictures of the hieroglyphics from a traveling historian one time, when I was younger. Why do you ask?"

"No reason," she said, a bit too hurriedly.

"Sable."

"Look, let's just say that ancient Egypt and the other side of the Veil were more closely intertwined than some might have expected, and leave it at that, okay? Besides, that's not even the proper origin for these symbols."

"Then why do they look the same?"

"Because runes like this are the foundation for every form of basic magic across the entire world," Sable explained. "You'll find similar runes across the ancient parts of the world no matter where you go – Asia, Scandinavia, South America, India… they all have similar runes, most of which accomplish roughly the same thing, but with a minor twist owing to the slightly different way they're written."

Again, Alain looked down at the page. "...It still just looks like you're drawing scribbles," he confessed. He went to point at one. "Seriously. This one here looks like a fire-"

Sable quickly batted his hand away, and he let out a hiss of pain as she did so.

"Ow!" he proclaimed, massaging his rapidly-bruising hand as he did so. "What was that for?"

"Don't touch it," she warned. "That rune has been imbued with my own inherent magical abilities. If you touch it, it will go live."

"What does that mean? It'll start a fire?"

"A small one, just big enough to consume the paper it's been written on, but yes."

Alain's eyes widened. "Whoa… seriously?"

"Yes, seriously," Sable confirmed with a nod. "I've written out a few other basic runes. You'll notice they all have a basic element in mind – fire, water, and air."

She motioned to each symbol in turn, taking care not to actually touch the paper as she did so. Alain once again leaned in, and this time, he was able to see what she meant. The fire rune looked like a small tinge of flame curling upwards, while the water one looked like a small droplet, and the wind rune was several upward-swept squiggly lines.

They were crude, but then again, from what he was able to gather, that was the idea in the first place – after all, these were the basic building blocks of the fundamental types of magic, so keeping them simple made sense.

"Okay," Alain ventured. "So, what happens now?"

"Touch the wind rune," Sable told him. "And only the wind rune, please." Alain looked to her in surprise, and she motioned for him to hurry up; after a moment to brace himself, Alain did so, placing his finger against the paper, right on the upward-swept lines.

The moment he did so, a small gust of wind emanated out from the page, just enough to blow some of his hair back and cause him to close his eyes in shock.

It only last for a second, but that was enough. Alain sat there, his heart hammering in his chest out of excitement, and a grin crossing his face.

"Whoa…" he said. After a moment to bask in the glory of casting real, actual magic, he turned to Sable. "So, how does it work?"

"Easy there, cowboy," Sable said, holding out a hand to calm him down. "You're a long ways away from being able to get anything like that. For now, we're going to focus on something even simpler."

"Like what?"

"Well, for one… improving your spiritual stamina."

"My what?"

"Your spiritual stamina," Sable repeated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You've never used magic before, so your stamina is non-existent. Think of it like this – the first time you worked in the fields, you came back extremely tired and sore, right?"

"Of course."

"It's the same principle with magic. When you first start out, it's extremely hard to cast anything, because you've never done it before; your body, and more importantly, your soul, aren't used to the sensation of doing so."

"My soul…?"

"Yeah. Where do you think magic comes from? It's not your brain, and thank goodness for that, because you'd never be able to cast anything."

"Ha ha," Alain deadpanned. "Anyway, what do I need to do in order to increase my spiritual fitness, or whatever?"

"Spiritual stamina," Sable emphasized, correcting him. "And right now, the best way to do that is to practice with that wind rune. Here, I'll draw another one out for you. What I want you to do is rest your finger against it and try to channel your soul through it."

She reached for the parchment paper and tore off another strip, then began to scribble on it once more. As she did so, Alain stared at her again, confused.

"Channel my soul through it?" he questioned. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"

"You've been to church, right?" Sable asked, taking him by surprise.

"Uh, yeah," he answered. "Course, it's been a while… Mom would probably go rabid if she learned I haven't been to confession since the house burned down…"

"Be that as it may, it's the same thing as when you pray – the same feeling, that is; the sensation of calling on a higher power for assistance. The only difference here is that you're trying to grab that sensation and focus it."

"So, I'm basically calling on God for a favor?" Alain asked as she passed him the new piece of paper. "Sounds blasphemous."

Sable shook her head. "No, it's not like that. For one, magic isn't a miracle; anyone can do it if they practice trying to harness it, and it's nowhere near as powerful as an actual miracle is – for one, you won't be raising the dead using magic, at least in the way you'd expect. It's more of a lost art than anything, purposely hidden behind the Veil long ago by people whose reasons for doing so have been lost to time."

"A lost art…?" Understanding dawned on Alain, and he brought a hand up to rub at his face. "Ah, shit… now I feel stupid… necromancy is magic, isn't it?"

"It is, but a very perverted form of it," Sable explained. "Magic can technically raise the dead, but it can't put a soul back in the dead person's body. What you end up with as a result is an empty, rotting husk, hungry for any flesh it can get its hands on. But that's neither here nor there; the point is, magic is very powerful, but nowhere near as powerful as an actual miracle. So no, this is not you calling on God for a favor, or whatever it is you just said. This is more like you harnessing something everyone is capable of doing, though it's since been mostly lost to time."

"Makes sense, I guess…" Alain muttered. "Okay, so I just need to rest my finger against this rune, and… I don't know… pray for my soul to flow into it?"

"Kind of," Sable said. "You're correct about resting your finger about it, but when you try to put your soul into it, try to keep it under control and not let the wind blow immediately. Instead, you want to try and draw that magic into you, and then when you're ready, release it."

Alain perked up at that. "Oh, I think I get it."

"Just be careful," Sable warned. "The longer you keep the magic held within you, the more potent it will be when it's finally released. As you hold it inside your core, it will mingle with your soul; the two will feed off each other, with the magic steadily becoming more powerful and unstable until finally you can't hold it in anymore, and it releases on its own."

"What happens then?"

"Wild magic."

Alain stared at her. She shrugged. "Truthfully, that part is hard to explain. All you need to know right now is that if you hold it in for too long and it eventually comes out on its own, well… weird things happen. Not the least of which is the magic imploding, reducing you to a red smear on the ground."

"Ah." He paused. "So it's dangerous, then?"

"Very much so, but only if you're stupid enough to hold in a powerful spell for far too long," Sable emphasized. "Magic is unstable, but that rune is a weak one, so it should be perfectly safe to hold in for as long as you want… within reason."

"You don't sound too sure of yourself."

"If you don't want to believe me, then don't," Sable said. "Besides, you shouldn't be trying to hold it in for that long, anyway. For now, it should be a few seconds at most; anything more than that and you probably won't be able to hold it back, anyway. So what that means is that you should practice taking in the energy, holding it in, and then releasing. Do that over and over again, and watch as your spiritual stamina gradually improves."

"Sounds easy enough," Alain said, turning his attention back to the piece of paper. "And after my stamina is improved? What then?"

Sable gave him a smirk. "Then, the fun can-"

Just as she was about to finish her sentence, a series of loud bangs rocked the train, followed by a chorus of panicked screams. Alain and Sable exchanged a wide-eyed glance with each other, and a split-second later, they were both on their feet, Alain reaching for his shotgun as they headed for the door.