Evercrest Vampire Truth

As soon as their caravan crossed into Dylan's territory an immense sense of safety washed over them all. This was the effect of the protection barrier that surrounded the vast property.

Suzan dragged Ester to the second level of their communal SUV to teach her how to "see" spellwork around her. The ancient vampires could innately see natural magic and because of this they recognized when there were gaps within this flow.

Usually the gaps within the natural flow of nature magic was the existence of other magics. Elemental magic had their sources in nature so they only disrupted the flow of natural magic slightly, almost imperceptibly. Magics like shade magic, and sorcery, which was the innate magic of humans, and alchemical processes, caused the biggest disturbances while magics like knowledge magic, soul magic, and dark magic disrupted only slightly more than elemental magics because these were magics that were born of elemental magics.

Ester listened in confusion as Suzan explained. Suzan had been so engrossed in her explanation that she had not noticed Ester's confusion. She looked down at the young woman and her smile fell.

Ester looked up at her in a daze and Suzan wanted to face-palm herself.

She sighed. "Let me just show you. Watch me and when you feel you understand try.

"First you regulate your breathing as if you want to meditate but in this case you are focusing your perceptions. You want them to 'see' all that is around you so you need to order them to be quiet and 'see'.

"To do this quiet your entire being then slow your being so that all the physicality around you slows. Bring all of this up and around yourself like it was a cone of silence and allow it to subdue and consume your perceptions.

"Then allow this cone to move forward taking your perceptions with it. Allow them to extend outward until they connect with something that you can identify.

"Allow your perceptions to know and explain this to you before you move forward. Continue in this way until your mind easily deciphers the things around you."

Suzan had decided to just allow Ester to learn how to purposefully extend her perceptions outward. In doing this she could teach her how to distinguish the different types of magic.

Suzan had learned that she had not been taught this basic action because she had been deemed incapable of learning and because this was not particularly important to ancient vampires because they only used nature magics and this naturally flowed to them and did not need to be sought.

But Terese had already begun teaching her that ancient vampires had lost their way. She had begun to teach Suzan things she innately knew and thusly never actually thought about.

And now Suzan wanted Ester to know as well. They were they same. Their only difference was that Ester was raised as an Ancient Vampire and Suzan was raised as a human.

Suzan told Ester that she would teacher her almost as soon as she found out the girl was incapable of doing this. But, until now, she was not sure how to teach her.

Ester had begun following her actions almost from the beginning and Suzan could sense her perceptions moving outward in front of them. They were just as they needed to be and when Ester came across an odd clump of shade magics she smiled.

"What type of magic is that?"

Suzan frowned as she replied.

"It is shade magic. It's actually odd for it to be there like that. Should we investigate?"

The question caused Ester to quickly pull out of her meditative state. She looked at Suzan with horror on her face.

Suzan chuckled and then shrugged.

"I will be with you and the others won't be far behind. What if it is something good. So we pass up everything because we are afraid?"

Ester pursed her lips, looked back towards the shade magic and nodded resolutely.

They stood up simultaneously. Suzan told Dylan, her grandmother, Elsbeth, and Marlon they were going.

Before there were too many protests she took Ester's hand and they leap-stepped towards their target. Just as they left the ancient vampires had phased to the upper level of the SUV followed by her grandmother teleporting there. They all watched the two leaping through the air as if they were jumping from paving stone to paving stone in a vast garden.

Her grandmother looked on with envy.

"Ester is learning quickly. All I can learn is teleportation and I can not do it very quickly. She looks like a pro up there."

Elsbeth shook her head.

"She is not a pro. Suzan is helping her by holding her hand."

Dylan nodded.

"Yes. She is keeping her up. It is like a teaching aid. She supports her while Ester completes the task."

She nodded.

"It still looks better than what I could do. Where are they going?"

"I can not tell. There is some break in the magic there."

"Hmm. All I can see is black."

"Black? It is not dark magic. I can see dark magic a bit."

They all looked at each other with varying expression. Marlon was the first to speak.

"Shade magic."

"Does she want my sister to kill us?"

Suzan stopped them both high above the shade magic. She was only there because of her instincts.

With almost every lesson Terese had told her to follow her instincts because of her high affinity towards fate. Her instincts told her there was something powerful here but also good for either her or Ester and she wanted it.

She suddenly found herself wondering when she had become so greedy.

She squeezed Ester's hand and the young ancient vampire squeezed hers back. Suzan nodded and erected a barrier of light magic around them both. She made it powerful yet subdued within every sensory range.

She realized that she had moved just a step passed their target but decided that was for the best.

When they landed everything seemed to freeze. Suzan and Ester were looking at three whimmer wills. They were powerful shade creatures that controlled shade, darkness, and mind/mental magics.

Suzan looked at them for a long moment and realized the reason why their magic looked so odd to her from a distance. Somehow all of them had fallen into a trume's pool.

Trumes were also creatures that wielded shade magics but they consumed other shade magic users to increase their abilities.

"They are in trouble."

Suzan spoke to Ester telepathically so eater looked to her in confusion. Suzan realized that Ester may not know how to speak telepathically. She was always taking things for granted.

"These are Whimmer Wills and they are very powerful and smart creatures." With that thought she looked at the trume's pool and gave a small shrug.

"They have fallen into a trap. The trume is not as smart but it senses and understands emotions and drives so well that it can create traps to entice other shade users into their pools."

Ester's eyes widened and Suzan nodded.

"The trume wants to consume them to gain their abilities. I am speaking to you telepathically because the whimmer wills would understand and then the trume would read their emotions."

It was a common practice for ancient vampires to hide and protect their emotions so Suzan knew that they were not at risk when it came to the trume.

She thought about the situation and brought a trickle of light magic up through the ground and into the trume below them. It was a large trume and when the light magic hit it a large area trembled and quaked below them.

There was a loud screeching howl muffled below them and Suzan felt the trume try to pull the whimmer wills to it to save its life but she already had them. Her shade magic had slipped under the three whimmer wills and protected them from the trume. She had not pulled them out because she had not wanted a real fight with the trume.

When it could not grasp the whimmer wills through Suzan's more powerful shade magics it began coming up from underground.

Suzan brought the whimmer wills up to them. She looked at them for a long moment and all three bowed to her as one. She nodded and put them and Ester a little higher up and a distance off towards the caravan that had stopped several miles from where they had first leapt off.

She walked down as if she descended down an invisible set of stairs. As she neared the ground she saw blood bloom within the black pool of the trume. The blood slid across the pool as if it were sliding across plastic.

Then the trume emerged, a ghastly gash going from its right leg and up through to its left shoulder.

It looked like a cross between a gigantic chicken and some type of lizard. White feathers squeezed between red and black scales, its beak was long sharp and black, and its eyes were large round and jet black. Before it could fully emerge from its hole Suzan moved her hand in front of herself and a dense band of white light streaked forward and cut the trume's head off.

Suzan looked at it for a second and then she looked up to Ester and the whimmer wills and then over to the caravan. She heard a soft bird call on the wind and knew that Dylan was on his way. She used gravity magics to bring the trume completely above ground and she heard the gasps above her when it was fully out.

She looked at it a moment longer. It was pretty big, she shrugged.

She sent her perceptions forward to see what it was hiding in its hole. Her eyes grew wide and her smile grew broad.