There were many seals to break for Ashan to regain his power, the first would lead him to take control of the child, such as sexual desire, when the child lost his virginity the fusion of the two personalities would be complete and Ashan would be part of Pablo and Pablo's mind would be that of Ashan, there would not be two entities but one.
The most important seal would be to corrupt the souls of ten people, this would give him a part of the psychic abilities of a vampire, a justicar had to make sure that he only attacked people who deserved it, he could not be playing at guessing, they were the dark hand of justice. On certain occasions it could be excusable not to read the mind of the victim but really his clan were not blind executioners, they had to be able to live with their actions.
The next seal or the first one he could fulfill would be to kill ten people with his hands, ten criminals, that would give him the complete physical abilities of a vampire, and finally it would be to drink the blood of twenty victims to begin the change to become a vampire again. A normal human body could not absorb blood, so first it had to be ensured that Pablo's body would resist the change.
Neither corruption nor death nor blood implied actions that in themselves would cause any change in a human being, they were part of symbolic magic, the change of consciousness that implied the loss of virginity, before and even now was a symbol of having reached maturity. Corruption as a sign of the will of the vampire's mind. Death as acceptance of darkness, and blood as a symbol of acceptance of the vampire's true nature. That was how symbolic magic worked, and although the seals took centuries to form, to be prepared in the phylactery and in Ashan's own original body, they are based on very simple principles.
They were plans that would take quite a long time to be executed. Pablo spent three years in Barcelona, the same time that his father was posted to the Brazilian consulate in the city. However, a few months before he came of age, a bombshell of news came to revolutionize the life of his family. His father was going to be named ambassador to Japan. It was a huge leap in his father's diplomatic career, something he could not afford to waste.
"We could all go, it would be a new adventure..."
"We have to think about it, Roli, we are talking about going to the other side of the world..."
His mother Lisa did not want the boy to lose his friends again, and especially his studies. The multiple changes of school and study systems had already made Pablo, despite being a very good student, lose a year.
Likewise, the previously antisocial and shy Pablo had made a lot of progress in those years of stability in Barcelona. Ashan's influence was noticeable, the boy was weaving a small network of friends at school, he had a small social life that had accelerated in the last year. It was when one of the girls kissed him for the first time, it was something casual, a silly thing, but it gave Ashan much more influence over the boy's mind.
All those years of gym, training, had sculpted Pablo's body that already had good genetics, the best that Ashan could guarantee him. The small and timid flirtations with girls increased, the Barcelona night was a paradise for a handsome and young boy.
However, the parents had a problem, they did not want to leave a boy of barely eighteen years alone in Spain. Pablo's mother decided to call an old friend.
"Yes..."
"Elsa?"
"You are, Lis! How long, I thought you had forgotten about me..."
"I have to ask you a big favor..."
"If it's for you, I'll do anything..."
The two women talked for more than an hour on the phone. In the end, they had found a solution so that Ashan would not be left alone in Spain. They would send him to Cadiz with Aunt Elsa, another former model. She was younger than her mother and had extended her career as long as she could, but she had no children. That was what she had decided. However, she would do anything for Lisa, even if it meant taking in a young boy.
It could have been more than seven years since she had seen the boy, but she remembered that he was a good boy, so she had no problem accepting to take care of him, at least until Pablo could manage on his own.
Ashan didn't care where to start pulling the strings for his revenge, and he couldn't focus all his action on a single city or look for allies in the same place.
It was true that living in Pablo's skin for so many years had made him fond of Barcelona, he had visited it when the city was not even a shadow of what it was today in his other life, but the reality was that the city was much better now than before.
Following his path through Cadiz would give him perfect cover to be able to move, his arrival was going to be a shock, and he couldn't avoid attracting the attention of powers that would be far above him at first.
The other option was worse, going with his parents to Japan meant moving away from the core where the old vampire clans had always operated, the old world, Asia was another dimension and something impossible for him to grasp.
A large part of everything he would do from now on would happen in the first days after his mind merged with Pablo. He was not afraid to merge with the boy, he had seen him grow and there was nothing in his mind that was not in order.
Pablo had been under his influence for some years, and deep down he had shaped his behavior in small details, had gradually broken the boy's shyness, and the time was approaching to take control again.