Vampire Warrior Magician

Posted on Mon Jun 24th, 2024 @ 5:21am by Gideon Asher
Edited on on Tue Oct 8th, 2024 @ 7:44pm

Mission: Where We Came From
Location: From Shadows to Blood
Timeline: A long time ago...

Gideon Ben Asher Ibn Zechariah slid easily through the shadows as his master had taught him.

“Vampires are creatures of the night,” his Shadow Master had been known to say. “We may be able to walk in the daylight as we mature, but night will always be when we are at the height of our power. Darkness and shadow are our allies. Befriend them, and they will allow you to conceal yourself completely in them, move through them, sense through them. When you are ready, and if you are truly their friend, they will even allow you to bend them to your will and imagination.”

Gideon emerged in near total darkness, but he could see even better than a normal vampire. Any true Shadow Magician could. All vampires had a basic ability to use a little Shadow Magic. Gideon’s study of the practice was more involved.

Now that Gideon had attained a level of mastery of Shadow Magic, he sought to perfect his use of Blood Magic. To do that, Gideon had to find a Master. He had hunted and searched and scoured the vampire world for a Blood Mage to teach him, using his natural skill as a hunter, his training as a Blood Knight, and his Shadow Magic. He’d traveled the Shadow Road until he thought he’d found what he was looking for.

Attempting to enter the Master Blood Mage’s lair via the Shadow Road was supposed to be merely an experiment. Gideon had assumed it would fail, when suddenly he wasn't on the Shadow Road any longer and was instead in what he believed to be the Master Blood Mage’s lair. Gideon allowed himself a brief moment of surprise, followed by a brief moment of pride, before feeding himself a harsh and cold dose of reality. He had mastered Shadow magic and could perform feats beyond those of most vampires, but he was not yet a Shadow Master. A vampire warrior magician of no small skill, yes, but not a Shadow Master. There was no way he’d slipped past a Blood Master’s defenses so easily. Unless the Blood Master, or in this case, Blood Mistress, had sensed his coming and let him through. Had she known all along that he was looking for her?

Yes, child of darkness and shadow! Come to me. Step onto the Red Road. If you are worthy of my knowledge, worthy to be my pupil, the Red Road will bring you to me.

Step onto the Red Road? How was he supposed to do that?

Beneath your feet, boy!

The smell of blood in the chamber… no… the tunnel was so strong that even Gideon, a vampire who drank the stuff, gagged a bit. Gideon looked down and realized that he was now standing in a stream of blood that had not been there before.

Step, boy! Step!

Suddenly, Gideon’s mind was filled with a vivid image of the Red Road. It was carnage and death and yet also life.

Allow your blood to join the flow of the Red Road and it will lead you to me!

Gideon closed his and felt clumsily around for the flow of the Red Road. It was just at the edge of his awareness, just outside his grasp. The more insistently he reached, the harder the task became.

“Don’t dive in, fool! You can’t force it!

Gideon relaxed and imagined the flow of his blood merging with that of a river of blood. The river of blood slowly became the Red Road and then he was there! On the Red Road!

Gideon was just wondering how far he might have to travel to find his mistress, blood pooled on the road in front of him and began to bubble. Then, from the blood rose the most beautiful vampire, male or female, that Gideon had ever seen. She was nude other than the blood soaking her hair and running down her body. Gideon simply stared at her, enraptured, watching as the Blood Mistress seemed to consume the blood by absorbing it through her skin. She walked around him and seemed to be examining him. The blood and her nearness aroused his senses and inflamed his desire, but whether that desire was to be intimate with the blood mage or to devour her, he honestly didn’t know.

“Would it surprise you to know that I feel the same?” The mage said. Stopped in front of him. She took his left wrist in her hand and brought the artery to her lips. She inhaled the scents there, then punctured the artery with her thumbnail. Just enough to draw blood. She sucked some of the blood from his wrist as a shiver ran through Gideon. She smiled and licked his wrist, her saliva closing the wound as was the way with vampires.

“I was simply going to eat you, but now…” she said, letting her voice trail off. She smiled again. “No, I think I shall teach you instead. I’ll keep you until I tire of you. If you hold my interest long enough, you’ll become a passable Blood Mage when it is time for you to go, young Warrior Magician. Come. I have much to teach you and you have much to learn.”

The Blood Mistress to Gideon by the hand and led him away.

And that is how Gideon Ben Asher Ibn Zechariah started on the path to add the practice of Blood Magic to his bag of tricks. It would be a dangerous path. This Master Blood Mage was one of the oldest vampires Gideon had ever encountered. If he displeased her, she would have the option of killing him creatively with Blood Magic or simply shattering his skull with a flick of her fingers.