The Bookstore Mage

The loud grunts of an old vampire reverberated throughout the bedroom, as Lucien kept casting Tadawsa on him. He first started by applying it to his legs, and to his immediate surprise, it worked rather too well.

The vampire's right leg began to disappear, turning into countless specks of ash. The skin disappeared, and then the meat disappeared before finally, even the bone disappeared.

The old vampire kept shaking in his place with a savage expression. His face was morphed into an expression of extreme terror and pain.

Lucien, however, did not care. It was almost as if he had fallen into a trance. He found it quite fascinating studying the changes that happened to the vampire.

With an excited gleam in his eyes and a wide grin, Lucien rushed to grab a notebook where he began to write down the results of his experiment. He had heard that vampires had small resistance against certain spells, and were even immune to some others. Still, seeing was believing. And according to what he was seeing, the poor vampire had no resistance whatsoever to the spells he cast.

"So It seems like the spells recorded in the book are indeed special." He mumbled and stopped casting Tadawsa. The vampire's leg quickly began to regenerate at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Hmm, so you can still regenerate even after all of that. The speed of your recovery, however, seems to be slowing down." He added and wrote it down in his notebook.

"Well, now that we know Tadawsa is extremely effective, shall we try some other spells?" He said, the grin never quite leaving his face.

Hearing that, the vampire struggled to shake his head with a pitiful expression. He regretted getting tempted to come to this cursed place, he regretted attacking this damned monster! It was impossible to even communicate with him!

His eyes widened in horror as Lucien snapped his finger, causing a small flame to appear over it. The Vampire kept shaking his head, trying to speak, yet to no avail. His mouth had been sealed shut.

"Now then, let's see how you fare against fire," said Lucien with a smile.

*****

A few hours later, an exhausted Vampire with hollow eyes, was staring at the ceiling. His gaze looked like it had lost all hope in life. The humiliation and torture he was subjected to in the past hours, was something that never occurred in his past couple hundred years of existence.

He had been burned, cut, bruised, bound. His limbs were forcefully torn from his body and made to regenerate. Over, and over... and over again. All until he could regenerate no more.

The devil that captured him kept using his strange spells, ones that the Vampire had never encountered before. They seemed like simple spells, but the power output behind them was ridiculous. It had rendered him helpless against them, his resistance toward magic turned useless.

The devil only stopped when he saw that he could regenerate no longer.

"Ah, speaking of which, I forgot to ask. Why did you attack me? I'm sure I never saw you before in my life, and I don't think I offended you or anyone."

The Vampire wanted to cry out. 'Weren't you supposed to ask that first!?' yet all that came out of his mouth were muffled moans.

"Hmmm!"

"Ah, silly me. I'll remove that for you, but remember if you scream you're dead."

Lucien's gaze brought shivers down the Vampires spine, making him nod hastily.

"Good, I ask the questions, and you answer." He added, to which the Vampire hastily nodded again.

"Good." Lucien then removed Imer's influence on the Vampire's mouth granting him freedom over it once more.

"Name?"

"Darius..." Answered the Vampire, his voice hoarse and tired.

"Age?"

Darius raised his brows at the question, yet did not dare dally in his reply: "204."

"Damn, you're old." Lucien subconsciously muttered, causing Darius' eyes to twitch.

"Ah, sorry. So, why did you come to my place?"

Darius hesitated for a second before answering:

"I smelled something very appetizing, something that called me over..."

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Lucien raised his hand in a threatening manner causing the old Vampire to flinch before he asked:

"That makes no damn sense to me. Explain, what the hell do you mean something very appetizing?"

Darius once again hesitated, his face turned strange as he motioned with his head toward Lucien.

"Me?" Lucien asked with a frown.

Darius nodded and explained:

"There's a strange aura emitting from your body. If it was not for it... Damn it I would not have been so stupid!"

A frown made its way to Lucien's face. A strange aura? He did not know why, but his hands immediately went to his face, they hesitantly traced his wide grin, before a serious expression overtook him.

Leaving the bound Vampire on the ground, Lucien rushed out of the room and made his way to the bathroom. The sight that greeted him was that of his smiling face and glowing red eyes.

The scene made him pause in shock. It was as if a veil was suddenly lifted from his mind. The gravity of the situation and of what he had just done slowly sunk in.

"What the f*ck?" He mumbled in shock as he raised his hands in front of his face.

"What the hell just happened?!"

Moon's meow suddenly pulled him out of his trance. Lucien turned to glance at her as she rubbed her head against his legs. A long sigh escaped his lips as he kneeled to scratch her head.

"Moon, I think I'm going crazy..."

"Meow"

*****

Back in an undisclosed location, a short-haired beautiful black lady was racing down the hallways with an anxious expression. Her steps were hurried as she came to a stop in front of a large wooden door.

As if waiting for her, the door creaked open. Nia gave a deep bow to the Chairman sitting behind the desk before she walked inside.

"Mr. Chairman, we have a problem!" Her voice was anxious as she spoke.

The old man released a sigh and pulled his long messy white hair back before asking:

"What happened?"

"Our scouts in charge of monitoring the bookstore on 27th Street reported the appearance of a mid-ranked rogue Vampire!"

"Who is it?" The old man's eyes turned serious as he asked.

"Darius!"

"Damn it, you handle this Nia. Try not to antagonize the bookstore owner, and whatever happens, do not fight inside."

"Yes, sir!"