“Hey Father Sandra! I think one of your precious prisoners just escaped!”

The priest driving the wagon heard the teenage beastkin’s shout and turned to look, more out of reflex than anything else. The voice was close, only a little over an arm’s length behind him. He should have seen the beastkin he just heard. His eyes narrowed. He looked through the bars of an empty cage into the one behind it, where the human prisoner strained in his confines, just for the chance to smile over his shoulder.

A series of questions buffeted the priest’s mind simultaneously in the space of an instant. Why was there only one prisoner instead of two? Did the beastkin youth just use some kind of invisibility magic, or did he somehow really manage to escape? Why did no one think to put a suppression collar on the young one? Is it raining? And why does everything taste like iron?

The last of these thoughts was accompanied by the strangest sensation. He felt as if a giant cat alighted ever so gently on his back and side. Three paws suddenly found purchase on his back, side, and head respectively. A fourth one, soft and leathery, nestled itself firmly against his neck.

Searing pain and realization seldom come together with such alacrity, as the priest felt the creature shift and twist. Claws hooked into his flesh, and the cat-like creature pulled on his neck with all the leverage it could muster.

Ah, the patter of rain on his skin and the taste of iron on his tongue were simply the backwash of his own blood and his arterial spray as the side of his neck was torn to ribbons.

***

The cambion completed his shout and blink teleported at the same time. In the space between instants, he focused his intent on arriving just above the priest as the oily man turned to look over his left shoulder.

He landed lightly on the priest’s back, digging all his claws into him at the same time, which he was pleasantly surprised included claws on his toes that were more like talons.

Felix felt the warm metallic blood spread over his right knuckles and fingertips as he raked his claws across Father Sandra’s neck.

Father Sandra reflexively turned to face his assailant. Blood splashed like a fountain over Felix’s face and into his open mouth.

The cambion disengaged his claws as the priest turned, and landed lightly on the seat beside the priest.

Felix locked eyes with Father Sandra and grinned malevolently.

The priest gurgled unintelligibly through gritted, blood-stained teeth as his life force ejected in beautiful spurts from an exposed artery. It looked like a little garden hose sticking out from a flowerbed of ruined flesh.

“Hah! I did it, Muzio!” the cambion exclaimed, raising his fists in triumph. “Suck it, you damned pervert!”

Wow! What the hell is this flavor? This tastes amazing. No, wait… Does it, really?

Previously, the cambion had associated the taste of blood with a coppery metallic flavor. Since coming to this world, however, his tastes had broadened. Mr. Blinky was his first bloody frame of reference. Even then, he had tasted more than just a coppery flavor. He had been somewhat ravenously hungry, however, and hadn’t had the chance to really appreciate the taste then. Now, tasting the blood of a living thing once more awakened the memory, as well as a flash of new memories that belonged to Father Sandra.

The memories came and went quickly. He was so surprised and revulsed by their presence that he instantly pushed them away. There was something else to the bloody flavor. It was an instinctual knowledge that revealed what it was. There was invigorating intent within the blood. There was magic. And the priest’s magic was the true source of his revulsion. There was a strong aftertaste. Like sampling sweet candy that suddenly turned sour at the last minute. This magic was… corrupt?

“ESSAY!” Muzio shouted, bursting the cambion’s post-victory bubble.

Five paragraphs... with an intro and conclusion?

Felix's mind short-circuited in a fantastical WTF moment. It was the penultimate brain fart. The result of his cambion inexperience clashing with a wealth of experiences that belonged to a high-school student in another world, in another life.

His understanding realigned like the snap of bones being violently reset.

Not Essay...

S.I A.

Situational Awareness.

Only seconds had passed, but Felix had violated one of the first rules of combat Muzio had taught him. Forgetting your surroundings gets you killed. The cambion hadn’t gotten tunnel vision. He had literally spaced out as he retreated into the inner world to appreciate the sweet bloody taste of his so-called victory.

Father Sandra clutched his shredded neck with one hand, and in the other he held a glass vial to his lips. The cambion caught a glimpse of the last dregs of a bright, glowing red-and-gold liquid as it disappeared down his gullet.

The remnants of the tiny green disc with floating runes that accompanied the priest’s dimensional storage space vanished. So too did the man’s bloody wounds. Father Sandra hadn’t bothered to apply pressure to his wound once he tasted the first drops of the miracle potion. The cambion watched with horror as the lethal wounds he had so proudly inflicted healed before his very eyes. The exposed artery retreated into the ribbons of flesh. The viscera and muscle warped like malleable putty, and simply rearranged itself into healthy, pink skin.

Even as he tossed the empty vial with one hand, his free hand came up from under his cloak clutching a carved bone-and-sinew wand, its point aimed at the cambion’s chest.

The cambion’s hesitation was short lived, but his reaction came too late. He pounced, swinging his clawed right hand wide. If he had more training, he might have still been able to reach his enemy in time.

Father Sandra growled words of power. “Enda kure!”

A pulse of energy slammed into the cambion’s chest, sending him hurling backward heels over head. His body flipped twice midair as he sailed through the trees and into the darkness, beyond the reaches of the dim light cast by the will-of-the-wisp lantern that floated just above the wagon.