Sorcerer-Adept Elijah Daniels lit his second cigarette of the hour as he watched the scene orchestrated by his hand unfold. He had selected a long-abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the Clarksville ruins as the staging area after they intercepted and captured their targets nearby. There had been a brief struggled with a few minor hiccups on contact but his team handled the situation.

The men provided by Archmage Blackthorn were elite, only normal humans sure, but they had enchanted gear for good measure. On top of that, Elijah had been given a gift by a servant of the Shadow; the Laughing Blight in exchange for selling out the secrets of one of the North American archmages. The gift made him and a few people of his choice undetectable for a short amount of time and it had led to many successful jobs in the years after its acquisition.

Elijah glanced at the bloody corpse of Jonathan Holston. The man had been killed midway through an attempt to shift into his bestial form so his body looked like a grotesque experiment gone wrong. One of his eyes had the yellow gleam of a beast while the other was pale brown. His face was mishappened as the bones of his skull had been stopped partway through their elongation. Fur covered his left arm and chest while the rest of his body was left untouched.

He frowned for a moment as he stared at the corpse. The Blackthorns wanted it for their necromantic experiments.

I’ll have to make myself scarce after I collect my pay for this job. Once the Holston Grayback hears what happened to his kin, I doubt the Blackthorns will make any effort to hide my involvement, He thought suppressing a shiver. Shifters didn’t scare him much since they were just brutes when things came down to the wire. But a shifter capable of wielding sorcery? He’d pass every day of the week. He was no Archmage.

His attention broke when a cry sounded from the corner of the room. There, a few of his men pinned a struggling woman who was attempting to fight them off unsuccessfully. Somehow, she got a hand free which started to form the beginnings of a hand sign before a gloved fist pulled away from covering her mouth and slugged her across the face.

Undeterred, she took her chance to speak, “Yotta, please. Eri—”

The remainder of her statement became unintelligible as the hand moved back to cover her mouth. Elijah shook his head at the sight. He didn’t like it but if he interfered, he’d get paid less so it wasn’t even a question.

The Archmage Blackthorn’s exact words had been, “The men have their instructions. If she’s so willing to forsake the Blackthorn name, let her learn what the world does to stupid girls who don’t know their place.”

That cold-hearted old bitch gives me the creeps, he mused. Archmage Blackthorn had a particularly infamous streak of cruelty that made even other Archmages hesitate before getting on her bad side.

He glanced to his side where the young woman sat staring blankly across the room completely oblivious to the cries of Liberty Blackthorn. Her eyes were glazed over which Elijah would’ve been worried about if not for the mana-suppressing collar around her neck. He had heard rumors of Yotta from his contacts among the major sorcerer families.

A genius talent on track to be the youngest Archmage in recorded history. At the age of seven, Yotta had mysteriously entered the employ of Liberty Blackthorn fifteen years ago. She had made waves among the families when she began weaving complex rituals showing skill far beyond her year. Although no one seemed to know the exact truth, these rituals were reportedly meant to cure Liberty’s son who had been born with some kind of condition that rendered him catatonic.

Archmage Blackthorn wanted Yotta alive and brought back to the Blackthorn estate, almost certainly to force the woman into servitude under the Blackthorn family. Despite being the one who took the job, he couldn’t help but reflect on how fucked up it was when one contrasted the fates of the talented servant and the exiled granddaughter.

The Families like to pretend they're different from the Aristocracy but it’s just the same shit with a different coat of paint. Well, at least, I don’t have to worry about anyone in the Families drinking my blood.

At that point, Yotta's eyes cleared up and her lips curled into a small smile.

He formed the hand sign for Arcane Sight over his left eye immediately. Unlike many mages and sorcerers, he didn’t have to bother with vocalizing his sorcery which gave him an edge in speed against most other practitioners. He relaxed when he saw that the enchantment on her collar was still active and no mana had accumulated in her body.

Instead of ending the spell, he followed her gaze with the technique active, still suspicious of foul play. Her eyes were locked on their van specifically the back. Both doors were open as Bradley, his second in command, stabbed the limp Eric Blackthorn over and over in the chest. The kid was awake for it all but didn’t make a sound as his empty eyes stared up at the van’s ceiling. It was a grisly sight making Yotta’s smile all the more unnerving.

Hasn’t she spent most of her life looking after that vegetable? Elijah thought, his brow furrowing. Something was off. He watched with Arcane Sight as the cursed athame repeatedly pierced Eric’s flesh. Each stab injected more of the athame’s insidious curse into the kid’s body. It was brutal but the Stigmatized were hard to put down when their Stigmata’s activated so he understood the necessity even if he didn’t have any personal bias against the poor bastards. The ritual dagger had been prepared by Archmage Blackthorn herself to dispose of Eric so there was no doubt in its efficacy.

Everything seemed fine but Elijah couldn’t shake the unnerving feeling clinging to his spine.

“He’s here,” Yotta said.

He glanced at her, confused. Her eyes were sharp in their focus as if she didn’t want to miss something. Had she managed to call for help somehow? He sharpened his focus sweeping through the shadows of the dimly lit warehouse with Arcane Sight.

Nothing. There was no one else in the warehouse as far as he could tell.

“What—?”

A guttural scream tore through the warehouse bringing a stop to all movement in the room. Elijah felt his heart momentarily stop from sudden and inexplicable fear. Bradley, a battle-hardened veteran, with the athame still in hand took a step back from its source.

“Bradley!” Elijah called urgently.

His second-in-command snapped out of his moment of weakness and surged forward plunging the athame into Eric’s body and leaving it there.

The boy continued to scream with the blade sticking out of his chest. Blood spilled from his mouth and his eyes bulged.

Elijah watched as Eric sat up. The sight bordered on impossible. No human even a Stigmatized should be able to move after being stabbed so many times and injected with an Archmage’s death curse. Yet, he saw the teenaged boy sit up and look down at his ravaged chest.

Eric’s hand shot up grabbing the athame. Without any hesitation, he tore it out of his chest and lifted it to eye level. This lasted a few seconds as the rest of the room found themselves frozen by some unseen pressure.

What is he doing? Elijah thought while he struggled to muster his mana. He hadn’t seen any shit like this since the Shadow’s Passing when powerful astral beings possessed humans. However, ever since the Akashic Records had arrived, astral beings of that caliber hadn’t been allowed to enter Earth’s portion of the Astral. Some like the Laughing Blight used intermediaries to spread their influence on Earth but even they couldn’t act directly.

To his horror, he saw the mana of Archmage Blackthorn’s death curse being broken down inside of Eric’s body and turned into pure mana.

Spurred on by the impending feeling of doom, his mana finally answered his call and the supernatural energy flooded his body from his Astral Doman.

“Shoot him!” the Sorcerer-Adept roared, infusing his voice with mana to break his men out of whatever held them.

Bradley was the first to comply. The older man jumped backward, his hands flying to his sidearm and drawing it in the blink of an eye. Before the other men had gotten their weapons ready, the second-in-command had rattled off three shots. The bullets slammed into Eric, two in his already ruined chest and one to the head. The young Blackthorn glanced at the man, blood flowing down his forehead from the bullet wound.

The sound of gunfire filled the old warehouse along with the muzzle flash of multiple firearms of varying calibers. Next to Elijah, Yotta’s expression remained focused and unperturbed which motivated the Sorcerer-Adept to rush through the hand signs of a second-order technique.

The smell of ozone entered his nostrils and lightning born of mana traveled down his arm to the palm of his left hand begging to be unleashed. He didn’t like using this indoors but he needed to put Eric, or whatever had possessed him, down. He finished the spell aiming at Eric who had fallen over, courtesy of a shotgun blast.

He took hold of the technique with both hands pouring more mana into it until the technique couldn’t handle any more power. Then, he released it. The warehouse was filled with bright light and the crack of thunder for a fraction of a second before the technique ended. The flash blinded everyone in the room since their eyes had adjusted to the dim light. Only Elijah retained a semblance of sight since his Arcane Sight was unaffected allowing him to see mana even while his normal vision readjusted.

In his Arcane Sight, it almost happened in slow motion. His lightning had flashed across the room guaranteed to hit its already critically wounded target. Then, a tiny amount of pure mana converted within the body of Eric Blackthorn had shaped itself instantly. It had looked like a pitiful attack. A simple bolt of mana, barely bigger than a finger. Yet, when it intercepted Elijah’s technique, the bolt had split the lightning in two diverting it into two arcs that passed into the sides of the van. Another portion of mana shaped itself over Eric’s skin at that same moment but Elijah lost vision before he could begin to parse its function.

Then, the fuel tank ignited and the van erupted into a fireball. Bradley was sent flying by the blast while most of the men further back managed to keep their feet.

Silence fell over the warehouse. They all stared wordlessly at the smoking, partially melted frame of their vehicle. Elijah prepared a new attack while he waited for the black smoke to clear. He didn’t see any mana in the truck or anywhere in the warehouse.

Had the kid, no, the creature obscured himself? He couldn’t have gone far in such a short amount of time. Then again, the Sorcerer-Adept was sure that the creature had cast two techniques in a fraction of a second without vocalization or hand signs. He had never heard of anything like that. He shook off the shock focusing on the present. He couldn’t slip up here. The little monster might be dangerous but there was no way it wasn’t hurting. They needed to capitalize.

“Spread out,” he commanded. “Search for the boy.”

Remembering Liberty, he spared the woman a glance. The men hadn’t gotten very far before all hell broke loose but they had knocked her unconscious which was a small blessing. If she had been awake, she could’ve added an unpleasant variable to the chaos. While Elijah was confident in his ability to overpower the weaker practitioner, he wasn’t keen on having her join her son in whatever he was doing.

A minute of tense searching passed before Elijah saw Yotta’s head swivel to a dark section of the ceiling. He saw a brief flash of mana. He didn’t have a chance to speak before the few working lights went dark with the sound of breaking glass.

The warehouse went pitch-black, effectively blinding everyone in the building. Elijah swore. They had flashlights and some other equipment for potential complications but it had all been in the damned van. He gritted his teeth as he made the call to dismiss the attack technique sparkling in his palm to cast another technique.

He lamented how intensive second-order attacks were. He couldn’t maintain them and cast other techniques at the same time. The best he could manage was maintaining a first-order technique that was already activated like Arcane Sight.

The beginner’s spell took him a second to cast. A ball of light flew from his outstretched hand to the ceiling illuminating the entire warehouse with bright, sterile light. The Sorcerer-Adept didn’t stop there though as he turned around, his hands already moving.

He had heard it. As soon as he cast the light spell, something had hit the floor behind him.

The monster in a teenager’s body stepped forward grabbing the hand Elijah was using to make his hand sign. The older man tried to break free but couldn’t. The grip was like iron.

How is he so strong? Elijah thought, his mind racing into near-panic. The boy’s chest still spilled blood onto his tattered clothing and the floor. Trails of the red liquid streamed out of the bullet holes in his face as he smiled.

“You will do nicely.”

They were the last words Elijah would hear.

Pain lanced through his body as he collapsed to his knees. He tried to muster his mana but nothing happened. Instead, he felt an insane pressure envelop his spirit pulling on his connection with the Astral. He tried to fight it to no avail.

Everything faded to the background in the face of his suffering. He screamed and clawed at the child. He felt it happening. Legends of creatures who consumed mortal souls flooded his panicked thoughts. The monster in a child’s body was taking it from him; his mana, his soul, his everything. Desperation crushed his pride and ego as the pressure crushed his mind. He begged, pleaded, and battled for a reprieve, an end to the torment.

Finally, his consciousness collapsed into nothingness. The warehouse welcomed silence once more as the life of Elijah Daniels ended.