"The process of transforming psi into a tangible effect is the basis of all magic," Helen explained, once I had recovered. "Sorcery, Alchemy, Witchcraft, what have you, it's all the same. You imagine what it is you want to happen, and shape your psi into that thing." With that, she formed a mote of amber flame in her hand.
"With practice, it gets easier. Now, of course you'll develop preferences, and you probably had latent potential anyways, before your... condition," she continued, gesturing at me, probably referencing my vampirisim.
"The other side of the coin is, of course, anti-psychic ability, which, all vampires have, by their nature, as a sort of magical defence mechanism. Which is necessary, for obvious reasons. Mere mortals like me... we have to hope we have that ability, and if not, tough shit."
"I have a question." I announced. "Why did you burn my face?"
"I didn't, I performed a test, how is that relevant to what I'm saying?"
"It isn't, its just been on my mind." I replied. "Can I have a written exam next time?"
Helen exhaled sharply, seemingly amused. "Anyone who has invoked their power, is left with a trace of the Yellow King's psi, its how his cults show allegiance, or at least non-hostility to one another, look."
Helen held out her palm, the same ugly scar appearing out of nowhere, winding across her flesh. "I simply... cut to the chase, the violence of the reaction implies that you are indeed a vessel. Now, do you have any other questions or are we going to continue?"
"None at the moment." I confirmed.
"As I was saying, then, everyone has a different aptitude, sometimes called an alignment, to one of five elements."
She splayed out her hand, going from thumb to fourth finger. "Fire, air, ether, earth, water." Does that make sense?"
"So far, yes." I said. "So your alignment is fire, which lets you use pyromancy?"
"Yes and no," Helen cut in."Yes, my alignment is fire, but I could still cast pyromancy if it were water, alignment is the texture of the soul, not a limiting factor. Now, the proper way to discern alignment is finger reading, but you get a sense for it over time, just by being exposed to a person's psi."
"I see." I said. My head was spinning a bit, but the information was still going in. "So i'd take it certain alignments have advantage over others, based on their traits?"
Helen's head tilted a bit. "Yes, actually, well, annecdotally. In reality it's far more complicated, but it's a common belief. There are also exceptions, as you may expect, anomalies pop up from time to time, for instance, ive heard stories of late, about a man with no psi whatsoever, even though that should be impossible."
"All living things have psi, though." I thought out loud.
"Well, this one doesn't, apparently." Helen interjected. "Pay it no mind though, stories are just stories. Now, from what i gather, you're ether-aligned, which means you have no strenghths or weaknesses relative to other alignments."
"I see." I said, considering this.
"Anyways, onto teaching you pyromancy. We'll start small, creating a flame in our hand. Are you ready?"
I nodded, and Helen rolled up her sleeve, opening her hand. "Just pool psi in your hand, and imagine it catching fire." She dictated, producing a small flame in her hand.
I copied her, extending my hand, and focusing. I pooled psi in my hand, and tried to imagine it igniting. It wouldn't happen. I couldn't go beyond the first step. Realising I'd failed, I shut my hand, almost reflexively, feeling tension gripping my shoulders.
"It takes a little while to learn to do it, don't worry." Helen said. "Just relax, if you try to force it you'll just spiral."
I shook my hand out and tried again. Still nothing. I felt my throat tighten, my hand was shaking. I shut it again. Helen said something, along the lines of "calm down" but I barely heard her.
"That's more of it..." echoed in my head, my father's words. "And the worst thing is it comes so much easier to you." Why couldn't I do it? It should've been easy, if I couldn't do it, it was because I wasn't trying hard enough. Memories came flooding in, standing paralysed as I was given yet another lecture on my disgusting inadequacy.
I slammed my fist closed tighter, piercing the flesh of my palms, drawing flaming blood, i opened my hand, enveloped in a purplish-black flame, it hurt, but it was better than failing. The flames grew brighter, feeding on my stress. Upon seeing this, Helen grabbed my extended wrist, snapping me into lucidity, and extinguishing the flames.
My hand was badly burned, but the pain receeded as the flesh knit back together, gently steaming.
"Aspen, that's enough," she said sharply. "I think I see the problem." I looked at her, breathing heavily.
"You can't imagine any version of you other than the current one. You can't shape psi unless it's at the cost of your own body, because that's what you believe is necessary." She explained. Silas tells me you bled from the eyes and nose after using sorcery for the first time, is that correct?"
"Yeah. I collapsed."
"That's not supposed to happen. Notice how once it was established you could do that, using it on the blood golem didn't hurt you?" She continued.
She was right. I hadn't clocked that. "Don't get me wrong, Aspen, you can absolutely become a powerful sorceror the way you are, as I said, the latent potential is there, and sacrificial sorcery is a thing, but it'd be better if you grew past that. As strange as it sounds, the sooner you learn to selfishly draw out your power, without compromise or giving back, the better."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The greatest sorcerors are akin to natural disasters. They don't care about anything or anyone in their path, nor do they care for anything that may try to bind or stop them. That's power. Silas would be like that, but he never had the potential. He's far stronger than he has any business being, but still, he has a limit, as do I. You though, you have a god entombed within you."
"I'm a doctor, Helen, it's against my nature to disregard other's lives, even if I personally hate them." I argued.
Helen exhaled sharply. "I understand that you can't see it now. Give it time." She said. "That's enough practice for today though, get cleaned up. Let's hope Silas hasn't killed your fledgeling yet."
I remained outside for some time after this, repeatedly invoking pyromancy. I found that i could apply the spatial manipulation I had been using on my blood to contain it, both ignited and unignited. My ability lacked any real finesse yet, the most I could manage was condensing it into a levitating sphere, and bursting that sphere as if it were a balloon bursting, the blood catching fire once released. If I decided not to ignite the blood, I could also launch it at high velocity. My triumph was short lived, though, as I found my healing was becoming painfully slow, and my vision began to blur.
I silently cursed my own stupidity, as it seemed I used up over a litre of my own blood. I felt cold and shaky, as I dragged myself inside, collapsing onto a chair and feeling frigid sweat soak my shirt.
Some time later, Silas entered the room. He looked me up and down, before leaving. Moments later, he returned with a bottle of vermillion liquid, putting it on the table beside me. Picking it up, I knew what it was. "Where did you get this?" I asked.
Silas sat across from me. "Orphans. Kidnapped them last week"
A chill ran through me, I nearly dropped the bottle.
He snorted, grinning. "Calm down, it was an executed prisoner. I have a friend in Holloway, I drained the body earlier and cremated it. I'm not a monster."
I uncorked the bottle and downed the blood, realising how desperate my need for blood was. My aching and shock eased almost instantly.
"Edith and I had a chat while you were out." Silas said once I seemed to be recovered. "I'm sure that went well." I groaned.
Silas made a pantomime gesture of offence. "I'm hurt you think I can't mind my manners. We're more or less over the incident in the cave, and as much as I hate to admit it, she has grown on me."
"About that..." I asked, "what would've happened if we died? I nearly did."
"Mmm, no, you didnt. If you were a human, absolutely, but vampires are a little different. The legends are only half right, you see. Do you think a stake to the heart would do you in?" Silas began.
"Yeah, a stake to the heart would kill most things." I said, not really seeing where Silas was going with this.
"It wouldn't. Sure, if you left it in, you'd die eventually, but the wound would heal too quickly to allow it to kill you. Besides, you'd just undergo false death. And either be recovered by me, or, if you're very lucky, you'd be temporarily posessed by the Haunter."
"Wouldn't that be dangerous?" I asked, "If the Haunter is as powerful as you say, what's the chances of me being able to regain control? What about Edith..." I fought against my rising panic.
"Aspen, Aspen, I'm not a monster. Besides, the Haunter needs time to gather its strength after manifesting. I could handle it." Silas said.
"And if it did regain its strength? Would you lose?"
"If the haunter were to regain all its power, it'd definitely be a serious problem, no doubting that..." Silas exhaled alongside a puff of bluish smoke.
"So you'd lose?"
"Nah, I'd win." He grinned.
"But Helen said..." I began, attempting to interject.
"Alright, alright," Silas said, "bear in mind, my main hobby is winding her up."
"Well actually she said you're stronger than you reasonably should be." I finished.
"Mhmm?" He grunted, taking another drag of his cigarette. "I'm trying to find where the insult is there."
"Is there one?"
"Has to be..." he snorted, grinning. "Helen wouldn't let me develop ideas above my station. Anyways, about your little infestation problem in London..."
"The Deep Ones?" I asked.
"Mm, the little fishies. I was looking at my records, and the population has grown far faster than I thought it would. I mean, sure, a contingent of any size could arrive underwater, but there are twice as many as I expected, deep ones usually take a while to build influence. And then you told me about your spanish friend..." he said, taking a final long drag from his cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray on the table.
"This is a new development then?" I asked
"Exactly, now, for that reason, we need to go on a little expedition, you and I, first off to find out exactly how they're doing this, and second, to deal with the problem before it becomes unmanageable." Silas announced, tapping his index finger into the table to punctuate each word.
"What about the Angels?" I asked, as he had said the exact same about that issue.
"Not quite as pressing a concern, they won't become a threat for another few decades. With the Deep Ones, we're talking months. I mean, the cherub is powerful, sure, but there's one of them, satisfied to be worshipped. Deep Ones, though, there'd be thousands coming onshore, with the sole aim of butchering people."
Silas "That did, however, get me thinking. Ever hear of a massacre that happened in a costal villiage in Nova Scotia, back in 1892?"
"No, but then again I was 8." I said.
"Well, I was there in the aftermath, I suspected the Deep Ones being involved, but you want to know what I didn't find?"
"Bodies?"
"Exactly. The news said it was outlaws, and that they'd fled soon after. Now, that in itself was utter nonsense, but Deep Ones normally don't clean up after themselves. Moreover, there were drag marks in the snow, leading to the coast. Do you follow?"
"They transformed them too." I said. "I'd take it it was an experiment on a small sample, before they took it to a highly populated area."
"Exactly." Silas said, "you know what else I found though? Dead Deep Ones, fucking sixty of them. No idea what killed them. I was hoping you could shine a light on that, Dr. Connors."
"Do you have photographs?" I asked leaning forward.
"Photographs? No. We're going there, the bodies are still frozen. The area is under permafrost."
"How?"
"Remember how I sent you into that cave network? I could send you there because I'd set a teleportation tether there. I set a similar one in Nova Scotia at the time, and is accessible via my teleportation circle, come on, and bring your bag of tricks." He said, standing up.
Moments later, we were in the basement, where Silas has opened a glowing portal, the rippling surface showing a swirling, pearlescent vision of a snowy forest. I clutched my doctor's bag to my chest.
"I hope you don't mind the cold." Silas said.
We both stepped in.