The night sky stretched overhead, cloudless and vast, stars burning cold and brilliant. The open-ceilinged botanic laboratory, its stone floor bathed in soft moonlight. Vines coiled delicately across an array of glass beakers and petrified wood shelves, some of roots were submerged in saltwater trays and others in… whatever they were submerged in.
Kai stood hunched over a series of vessels aligned beneath a constellation diagram. His fingers dipped a silver instrument into the saltwater, carefully swirling the solution.
"So, If we time it with the Zenith of Canis Major, the root system should be more receptive to channeling and its absorption rate will triple," Kai muttered thoughtfully, eyes flicking to a suspended vine in saltwater.
Mary, standing nearby with her sleeves rolled up and her hair messily tied back, glanced up at the sky. "What about the moonlight? The journal I read yesterday said it can increase magical conductivity during the second lunar phase especially when it hits the epidermal layer of vines."
Kai gave a short nod. "That would make sense. The lunar aspect would synergize with…"
He paused, reaching for a small vial filled with an iridescent silver reagent. But as he uncorked it, Mary's eyes widened in alarm.
"No, don't use that!" she said, almost leaping forward. "That one reacts badly under moonlight. It causes desiccation in vines… and paralysis in humans. If the moonlight touches it while it's on the vine, it could destabilize the entire batch."
Kai froze, then gave her a deadpan look. "Paralysis. Lovely. So you didn't mention this when we catalogued everything earlier because...?"
He set the vial down with exaggerated care and dusted his hands off. The vine, meanwhile, finally gave a faint tremble almost like a heartbeat and extended a few inches longer, fresh growth turning a verdant green and sprouting with soft new tendrils.
Mary sighed, watching it. "Half victory, half disappointment. It stopped."
Kai observed silently, then murmured, "Not enough properties to absorb. It's hungry, and we're feeding it scraps."
"Maybe we got the constellation wrong?" Mary offered.
Kai shook his head. "No. That's not the problem. Something's missing. Either an energizing mineral, a reactive core, or—"
"—an amplifying compound," Mary finished. "There's a jar of essence bark stored at the compound near Welters Stadium. It might do the trick."
Without another word, she turned and briskly exited the laboratory, the door closing gently behind her.
Kai remained, staring at the vine, then slowly turned his gaze to the reagent Mary had warned him about. He picked it up, tilting it slightly as the silvery contents shimmered under the moonlight. "Paralysis-inducing, desiccation-causing moon-juice. Nice to know it doubles as biological napalm," he muttered, placing it back.
Then he froze as a scream tore through the air. Subtle and unnoticeable, to anyone else not close to the source. His vampiric hearing zeroed in on it then said.
"...the Welters Stadiu—"
He didn't finish the thought.
He moved.
The night blurred past as Kai vamp-sped across campus, the laboratory already far behind. He arrived at the stadium's back entrance in seconds. The first thing that hit him was the coppery smell of blood in the air.
His breath caught and his eyes darted around before looking down.
He saw a pair of glasses lay askew near the entrance.
He followed the scent, the stench of blood growing stronger. As he rounded the corner and—
There she was.
Mary was on the floor, unmoving. A gash at the back of her skull bled out into the concrete, pooling fast and her eyes wide open.
His face went eerily blank as he saw the body of his study mate.
A few feet away stood someone, someone holding a knife, as if caught mid-motion. The boy's stance was wrong and too stiff.
Kai's lips pressed into a thin line.
He didn't even look at the boy first. He kneeled beside Mary and gently closed her eyes.
"Hello, Mike," he said evenly.
The boy jerked slightly, startled. His light blue-tinted eyes locked onto Kai. "You—"
Kai finally looked at him. Mike or rather, the thing inside him and as Mike raised his hand to cast.
Kai raised his hand as well.
The spell never left Mike's lips. He was ripped off the ground and thrown with supernatural force across the stadium, colliding with a support wall. A groan escaped him as he slumped.
Before he could fall…
Crack!
A wooden beam, broken from the bleachers, shot across the field and impaled his shoulder, pinning him to the wall.
"Aarrghhh"
The knife clattered from his hand.
"Stop pretending," Kai said calmly over Mike's scream. "I know you can take that much."
There was a low chuckle.
"Well, if it isn't the surprise package," Mike wheezed, spitting blood. "Brutal of you, Kai… to do this to a fellow student."
Kai tilted his head slightly, like a curious bird. "And that" he pointed to Mary's still body, "was just a friendly sparring match?"
"Oh that?" Mike grinned. "Unfortunate accident. Right place, wrong time. That's all."
Kai's gaze sharpened.
"Is that so… Martin?"
Mike's eyes widened.
"How di—?"
Thunk!
Another beam flew.
This one pierced through Mike's thigh, pinning his leg in place. He howled in pain.
"You're in no position to ask questions, Martin. Only to give answers."
And then Mike's nose began to bleed.
Then his ears as pain exploded in his head along with some blood vessels popping as Kai used the aneurysm spell.
Mike twitched violently as pain wracked his borrowed body.
Kai vamp-stepped, appearing directly below the impaled boy. His face had shifted. Veins darkened beneath his eyes. His sclera bloodshot.
"You're weak," he said coldly. "A child playing god. And what do you do with power beyond imagination? You become the very thing you feared. A parasite. A coward."
Martin laughed raspy and cracked. "You're... interesting."
Kai's expression twisted in disgust. "You're a speck. A speck of bile with delusions of grandeur. All you do is take. You kill not out of necessity, but for pleasure. There's nothing interesting about that."
Then he raised his hand again and uttered "You will remember this pain every time you close your eyes, Mentem et animam tua in tenebris laceret Cruciamentum Animae(Let your mind and soul be torn in the darkness)".
Mike screamed.
This time the scream was primal and guttural. It tore from his throat like something alive. He convulsed as an invisible force seared through the intangible fibers of his mind, cutting deep, leaving no visible trace only agony.
Kai stepped closer, watching. "I could destroy the body, but that wouldn't touch the real monster. You don't have a shade, in that case I'll break what's left of your mind instead."
Martin through Mike screamed again. Sweat poured from his brow. Blood dripped from his eyes now.
"You're nothing," Kai whispered harshly. "Nothing but rot given voice."
A moment later behind them someone shouted in shock
"FUCK."
Professor Sunderland had just arrived with Professor March.
They froze at the scene, the body on the floor, Mike crucified to the stadium wall, and Kai standing beneath him, shadows crawling behind his now-calm face, as if he'd done nothing at all.
"Evening," Kai said, brushing his sleeves.
"And before either of you lecture me," he added, nodding at the corpse, "you might want to deal with that first."
The silence that followed was suffocating as Kai then stopped his little session with Mike.
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