I have a riddle for you: what’s not dead yet but is about to be? If your answer is yourself, then you should probably go to a psychologist. Seriously, get some help. As for the real answer, well, it depends on how quick Tedet and I are to lay down some waste. Otherwise, it might as well be me!

“Flamma!” I screamed and waved my hand around. I imagined a curtain of fire and, as the flames spewed out of my thrust arm, they coalesced above us and in between Tedet and I and the leeches surrounding us.

I could hear the hissing coming from them as they flinched from the fire. Vampires are predators, they hunt and they love hunting, but they also love the thrill of danger; however, they are also not dumb, so when they felt my fire they must have felt a surge of adrenaline and started wanting to rip me to pieces and eat me out, but they also knew that I was very dangerous.

The clapping sound of Tedet’s railgun ringed loudly next to my ear as he walked backfiring. Three claps. We could not see any kills beyond the burning flames and smoke.

“Flamma!” I shouted again and this time tried aiming it at a place where I knew a vampire must have been standing.

I heard the screeching sounds that signified I must have caught one of them. I half-smiled for a moment before coming back to my senses.

I didn’t come back to them fast enough, a vampire leapt towards me through the smoke. As it lunged, it managed to nick me with its claws, it was fast enough to grab me but he wasn’t accurate enough when he jumped at us. My arm was caught along with my coat and one of its claws ripped my coat and cut into my flesh.

I whined in agony while I heard Tedet’s clapping gun trail behind the vampire. There were several thumpings and crumbling along with screeching. Tedet must have caught the vampire as it made its way out from the circle of smoke.

“We have to get out of here,” spoke Tedet. “If they keep trying, they’ll pick us apart.”

“Fools!” shouted a voice from outside. “The mortals are weak!”

More hissing could be heard from outside. If I were to count, I’d say there were at least twelve distinct hissings. More hissing means more vampires. More vampires mean more trouble. And if my math is right, more trouble equals a dead Tedet and dead Edwhite. I was never really a fan of mathematics, but when they herald my doom, I really, really don’t like them.

“Get back!” said the same voice. And soon after it, a hissing and heavy footsteps began resounding around us.

Two vampires ran through the fire and smoke, they appeared only a meter and a half from each of us at opposite sides.

I thought fast and moved back to place my own back against Tedet’s. “Tempesta!”

The wind screamed as it fell towards the ground from above us and slammed into the inner circle of the fire. The two vampires that were inside the inner circle were hit straight and out of the circle. The wall of smoke dissipated and the fire roared when a surge of oxygen feed them hotter. The vampires that were near the fire screeched as they began to burn.

With the smoke gone we could see more vampires around us, but their stance didn’t look like they were aiming for us. The vampires were divided into two groups, and both of them were pointing at each other. These must be vampires from different families.

It finally came to me. The reason why this place was wrecked and why so many vampires -- and only vampires -- were dead came to me so easily and simply it wasn’t a eureka moment.

“Oh,” I said in simple understanding.

“A vampire war?” asked Tedet.

“And we’re right in the middle of it,” I continued.

“We’ll be the price of the winners if we don’t go.”

“Not after we find my nephew.”

“You and your nephew…” began Tedet. “We won’t be able to save him if we die here.”

“Then let’s find a way to do both! Flamma!” I screamed and shot right into the vampire that was blocking the doorway. The flames smashed into it and burned and blew him away. The leech didn’t have enough time to scream, he was dead before he knew it. “Go!” I commanded and pulled Tedet with me.

The attack triggered something in the vampires and suddenly they all jumped at each other and us. This was it, the battle had begun!

We ran through the corridors and rooms while vampires from opposing families tried catching us. We weaved and sprinted for our lives, we had no time to turn around and fight, nor did we have the strength. Tedet couldn’t just shoot blindly behind him, he needed to turn around to at least point the weapon towards the enemy.

We slammed our steps into the ground and I could hear my heaving as I started wanting to gulp air into my lungs. Tedet had no such problem. As for the vampires, they were way better at keeping their breath because they did not need to breathe. They would get dizzy without oxygen and their bodies could die without any of it for long periods. But the need to breathe is not part of their instincts, thus they didn’t have a problem with breathing while running.

The screeches and hissing as they fought between each other to get the upper hand helped us get away. They would pull at one another if either got closer to us. They would push the other into furniture, the walls, and even out of the doorway just to get the upper hand. They pushed and slashed. They bit and punched.

Wood, glass, and ceramic broke as they fought to chase us and trying to stop the other from catching us. We were lucky they hated each other more than they wanted to eat us because we could run for longer until they managed to trip enough times to lag behind us.

Tedet turned around next to me and I did the same to see him kneel and take aim at the two vampires.

Clap, clap, clap, clap, the gun resounded for what felt like two seconds.

The vampires were riddled with bullets and their bodies contorted as they ran through the long corridor being slammed and penetrated by heavy steel rods. Their arms were ripped apart and their legs were chopped off several times before they even finished giving a stride. Their faces exploded before they fell completely to the ground.

The clapping stopped and the remains of the leeches were scattered on the corridor and on top of a pool of blood as their blood bladder was ruptured opened. Tedet stood up and I could hear wheezing. He croaked and his pimples had turned red.

“Spending time with you has never been this exciting,” he said not turning towards me yet.

“Nor has it ever been this terrifying,” I answered back.

I walked towards the next doorway and carefully peeked into the next room. I didn’t want to jump gung-ho into the next troublesome situation; the last thing I need is more difficulties. It’s already bad enough that my nephew was kidnapped by vampires, I don’t need those same monsters to be after me while I was looking for him in their territory.

There was no one in the next room, so I moved forward. There was a slight problem with my plan, though. I had no idea where to start looking. At first, it was as simple as searching every single one of the rooms until we find him, but now vampires are going at it anywhere in the ruined mansion. If we’re going to find Jaser, we need to know where to look. Hence the problem.

“Where do we go,” I said in a loud whisper, not too loud to be heard by anyone but just enough to be heard by Tedet next to me.

“I don’t want to go back there,” he said. “I’m down for killing those keivielan, but I don’t want to die just yet.”

“I also want to avoid danger.”

“No plan?” he asked, in an almost rhetorical fashion.

“Not yet,” I said and started moving forward.

“That’s more like it. You always think too much.”

“You think too little.”

“I act,” he hissed the answer.

“You want to die early.”

“There’s no point discussing things with you.”

“That’s something we can agree on,” I said while turning around to give him a big sarcastic smile.

Tedet grumbled when he saw my face. I’m not really sure why he made such a sound, he could be growling at me in frustration, but he might as well be courting with me for all I knew.

Radera, I tell you, they are one weird species.

“You humans are weird,” said Tedet almost as fast as I could finish that last thought.

I stopped in my track for fraction of a second. Did he read my mind? Did you read my mind? I thought as loud as I could, waited for half a millisecond, and got no answer.

“What?” asked Tedet, since I was staring for a bit too long.

“Nothing,” I answered a bit startled.

“Wizards…” he said in plain displeasure.

After a couple of minutes, we managed to find stairs that lead into the basement. We were being careful to look for places that seemed odd. A basement in a vampire mansion screams out “dungeon.” It also screams out “danger do not enter under any circumstances if you’re human,” that or maybe “please, come in, we have cookies,” and then a vampire snaps your neck and drinks you like a cold beer in the middle of a summer heatwave.

I would definitely avoid this place in other circumstances, in fact, I would in all other circumstances, but today someone important could be trapped inside and I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything in my power.

‘I’m sorry, sis, I was too scared to enter the vampire death dungeon to save your son, but hey, I have good news, no more school tuition fees to pay! As far as I saw it, I was doing you a favor.’

As if that excuse would fly. It is more likely that my head will! But then again, there’s also Tedet’s girlfriend, and though I don’t think she’d be scarier than a mother hell-bent on vengeance because someone left her kid to die, she’s a lot more capable of carrying her threats. Capable and willing.

I look at the stairway descent into darkness and death (nice name for a heavy metal album) and my body shivered before I took my first step down. This was a very, very bad idea. But I had no choice, I had to do what I could.

I turned around to look at Tedet and I saw his common emotionless radera face, giving me strength. Somehow, knowing he’s here with me, willing to keep me safe despite how against he is with the idea of saving my nephews just for the sake of bloodline, makes me feel at ease. Tedet is the best of friends. No one could compare.

Hm. No, maybe a dog would be better. Radera’s don’t have animal companions like humans do. And, unfortunately, dogs aren’t keen on radera’s, they are scared of them, and would bark and attack easily. That’s the only reason I don’t have a dog.

I could have a cat, and that would fit better with my wizard image. However, with cats -- I don’t hate cats, I just like to have my animal-human relationship be reciprocal and on the same rank. With cats, I feel like they see me like the inferior species.

As I kept thinking about fluffy animals to keep myself away from visualizing images of my doomed future, and at the same time turning absolutely crazy, I took the final step down into the darkness. The basement was humid, damp, and cold. I tried letting my vision adapt to the darkness as I carefully moved forward in the short and narrow corridor.

I had no way of making light, unlike your classic school of magic fantasy books, our wands don’t shine with an incantation… well, they could but you’d have to make the wand emit light through thermodynamics; in other words, set your wand on fire. I don’t like wasting my precious wands, especially since I don’t make them, I buy them.

On the other hand, Tedet can make light, all thanks to how alchemy works. It’s simpler to make materials emit light than to just set them ablaze. I’m not envious of him, but I wish magic was as flexible as alchemy sometimes seems to be.

It took him no time to grab a small battery from his waist pouch and use it as a lamp; chemical energy into photonic energy at the speed of thought. No incantations, no ritual, no nothing. As far as I know -- and what I know is what he tells me -- all he has to do is think about what must happen for it to work. Of course, you have to have a very good idea of how the world works, otherwise, the results might not be what you want, and other times they can be catastrophic. Again, I’m not envious of him. When it comes to magic, most of the time it either works or it doesn’t, very few times does it go berserk.

Actually, maybe I’m a little envious. It’s my kind of magic that could go wrong. Remember the stones?

Oh, sweet Mary, the stones.

They’ve been sitting too long inside my coat, sucking the magic out of me slowly, or at least the storing stone did, and I bet it’ll zap me hard if I tried taking it out of my pocket. As it stores magic, it acts like a capacitor, the moment it gets enough energy it’ll start discharging it into the closest low-charge (or low magic in this case) object. And the closest is me.

I hope I don’t get zapped while in the middle of a fight. I’ve used magic already and I could start running low soon, I can’t imagine how the stone will discharge it into me at that point.

Tedet, whose glowing hand was illuminating the vampire dungeon called my attention.

Right. Real life. Real problems. My nephew. I need to get back to reality, we’re in deep stuff and I can’t let myself get distracted with my thoughts.

“There’s no one here,” he said.

“Dammit,” I whispered. “Where could he be?”

“It looks like they had people in here, but now they are gone.” Tedet kneeled as he entered a small room. There were chains inside it and he held one up. “Someone had this on -- look at the marks, they are new.”

“Do you think my nephew was in here?”

“I couldn’t say,” he began. “But if he was or wasn’t, they took anyone in here away. We have a better chance looking for him wherever they took the people here.”

Dammed leeches, I thought.

“Let’s get out,” I told him. “We’re of no help to anyone being here.”

“Run for it?” Tedet asked, very seriously.

“But quietly.”

“I don’t like feeling like prey, but I also don’t like confronting vampires.”

“So,” I started, and let Tedet finish his train of thought.

“Run quietly, then.”

“Great plan,” I said sarcastically, but Tedet did not respond to that. Maybe he didn't catch my tone.

We ran upstairs as quietly as possible. I tried looking carefully to find out if there was somebody outside. I saw no one. I signaled Tedet to keep going and we jumped out of the dungeons.

Ah, how life is cruel.

I heard myself make a visceral sound. Like one of those deep, bellowing coughing sounds. I didn’t really notice it was me, I only know it was me thanks to retrospect. At the moment, I hadn’t noticed it because I was very much distracted by the fact that I had impacted my face into something that came out of nowhere. It took me a little more to process it because, right as I was regaining awareness and rubbing my butt from the good crash date it had with the floor, I found myself looking at a figure pretty much doing the exact same thing.

Two figures were staring in disbelief at each other. Both sprawled on the ground. Both rubbing their tush. Both, very much surprised about the fact that they had encountered one another in a fateful reunion. And both were very much enemies.

Sweet Mary, I had just bumped into a freaking vampire!

“TED!” I screamed for my friend’s name as loud as I could. And I tried standing up while preparing a spell.

I couldn’t really manage any of those because I quickly found myself in a huge predicament.

Tedet had been almost knocked back because of our crash. The vampire had the same idea about standing up, but he was a lot quicker. And I had just hurt myself with two pebbles right under my hands. Yes, both of them.

Now, you’d think it’s the vampire I found the most concerning, and you’d be correct in basically any other situation. But you see, this was no ordinary situation, for my right hand was zapped the moment I touched the pebble, and my left was stung like it was being singed.

Sweet holy Mary, have mercy!

I made sure I screamed that in my mind.

Actually, who am I kidding?

“Sweet holy Mary, have mercy!” I wailed.

I grabbed the stones under me and I chucked the one that was burning my hand right into the vampire's face. That was lucky aim.

“TED!” I cried out this time a lot more desperately. “RUUUUUN!”

I saw Tedet’s pimples turn green for a moment before I couldn’t see him behind me. I heard him stomp behind me so I knew he was there.

Remember when we talked about the stone?

Right -- Armageddon.