The Restless Dead Want YOU To Fight Necromancy

"I might be interested. Let me sleep on it."

"Don't sleep too long."

"Good night, Erwin."

"Good night, Morgan."

You're tempted by the book on technomancy, but suspect his motives. You got the impression during the conversation that he knew more about your situation than he said, and you could have used a wake-up call earlier.

Not that you can exactly blame anyone not suicidal for hesitating to wake a cranky, starving elder vampire.

Sitting around idly waiting for Henderson to get home isn't any good – it's been two hours, he's obviously having trouble finding animal blood at midnight. Luckily, you have a library and ritual items to catalog.

Ritual magic requires instructions, not just good intention and luck. It rewards precision and expertise. You have four notable grimoires in your library.

• Astronomia magna (1537) by Paracelus. A treatise on hermeticism, astrology, divination, theology, and demonology.
• The Arbatel de magia veterum (1575). A basic, uplifting primer on magical principles and harmony with the natural world.
• 1001 Mystical Defenses. It does not contain 1001 rituals, but it is a reliable, if boring, set of warding diagrams.
• The Telyavelic. This book on blood sorcery draws on principles of harmony with the spirits of nature and guardianship of the dead.

You also own a reasonably reliable bestiary, a herbal, a variety of deeply and terribly wrong books on magic and vampires, a collection on finance and a collection on psychology. The house contains books on economics, journalism and current events, and a lot of cheap paperback novels. Checking through the books does not take long, as the only changes are additions, carefully separated, so you take a few minutes to try the computer. Without your new memories you would be hopelessly lost, but that's why telepathy is a wonderful skill.

You set up an anonymous email account on a free service. You have no one to email, but it feels productive. You leave a message with a laundry service, and decide that's enough care and attention to give domestic matters in one night.

You ravage the kitchen first in your quest for magical ingredients. The highlight is a box of pure kosher sea salt of the highest quality. The lowlight is the herb rack, which is just sad. Stale is the kindest word for the mediocre offerings. A search of the rest of the downstairs yields chalk, candles, a bunch of dried roses stuck in a vase on a mantelpiece, and a bag of glass marbles that might be good for something.

It's not exactly what dreams are made of, but with pure salt and candles, you can cast a basic cleansing ritual in your spellcasting space in the basement, scrubbing down the slate surfaces and filling the room with your power, dispelling all other influences. A hundred years of spiritual detritus. Disgusting. You're pretty sure someone had sex in here at least once.

When you're done, the room is clean both physically and spiritually, and your ritual tools and scavenged junk are tucked away in their cupboards. Your shopping list is long. Glass jars, mortar and pestle, fresh herbs, stones and metal wire for focuses, candles that didn't come from the supermarket… you need to find a magic store. Perhaps you could buy things on the internet? Perhaps you could buy everything on the internet and never leave your house again. The idea has a guilty sort of appeal, though you'd get bored and lonely.

It's very peaceful here, with the only others in the house sleeping. In the distance, a siren is wailing, and someone is playing their music far too loudly, but your house is quiet and comforting, with only faint mortal heartbeats for company and the not-so-distant rush of the creek.

You're in the midst of cleaning the ritual tools from the attic, a bowl of obsidian, an iron knife, and a bone wand, when you sense Henderson returning. You leave them for the moment and head upstairs.

Henderson is a mess. He stomps into the house, liberally spattered in mud, one arm bound up with his coat in a makeshift sling, the other dragging a cooler that entirely steals your attention. He came back with something, at least, if a little worse the wear.

"I hope you're happy," he growls, putting the cooler down and tossing his keys at the hallway table. They miss. You pick them up and put them in the decorative glass bowl.

"Ah… maybe? What happened?"

"I have been all over town looking for someplace with something to feed you. I got this," he gestures at his injured arm with his other hand, "At the butcher's. They were closed. So I tried the vet. They've got injured animals there. Absolutely useless, told me to try a farm north of town. The farm had some potential and they say they'll be happy to talk money during business hours, but then, then, I got stuck in a ditch driving back. Got the car out, eventually. Jarred my broken arm, went to the ER, where they were so useless I decided to just get out of there and come home. Got this for you there."

You open the cooler. It is absolutely full to the brim with what is apparently bags of human blood. There is obviously quite a lot to unpack about Henderson's night, and he is very upset. Where do you even start.

[]Open up the cooler and start drinking. Your first priority is your hunger.
[]Ask more questions about the butcher and how he injured his wrist.
[]Ask more questions about the farm and the possibility of an ongoing purchase of animal blood.
[]Ask more questions about the hospital and how he managed to walk out with the bagged blood.
[]Make him sit down, look at his wrist. See if you can make him comfortable.
[]It's past one in the morning, let him get some sleep.
[]A few drops of your blood would speed Henderson's healing, if you wanted to bind him closer to you. You usually don't blood bond people you just met.
[][Mesmerism]Calm him down with a little mind trick.
[][Ritual magic]A minor blood magic ritual you know speeds healing. Stick him in the middle of a magic circle and do your thing.
[]Write-in

Now, how to approach this. You pick up one of the bags and examine it. The plastic is thick enough to not tear easily, but you can certainly open it with a knife or fangs. You don't want to make a tremendous mess.

You catch Henderson's eye, using a trick to dull pain and fear. You are deeply curious, but there's no reason to hurt him.

"Let's continue this conversation while I have a drink," you invite, and take your new prizes to the kitchen. At least there you won't get blood on a nice wood floor.

Henderson turns up after you've gotten out a bowl and steak knife and stabbed one of the bags of blood. He took the time to take off his muddy shoes. You are just lifting your bowl of blood to your lips as he comes into the kitchen, turning on the light. You squint for a moment before your eyes adjust.

He stares at you.

You drink your blood. It has a chemical aftertaste, but is full of élan vital, and deeply satisfying.

He stares at you.

You raise your eyebrows.

He makes an indecipherable face.

Ah, your bowl is empty. You lower it.

"I don't think this silent communication is really working for us," you comment.

"You're a vampire."

Well. Yes.

"And you look deeply terrible. Sit down, sit down. Did a doctor set your arm?"

"Never saw one. The nurse stuck me in an exam room and then no one came."

"Wait, don't let me make you tell it out of order. I hope you don't mind staying up?"

"I have had a lot of coffee. A lot. Of coffee."

"I'm sorry I sent you on such an eventful errand."

You start drinking your next bowl of blood.

"If you think I was leaving my daughter in the same house as a hungry vampire for one second longer than I had to you are out of your mind," he whisper-shouts.

You finish your drink before replying.

Henderson is staring at the cooler of blood, and you suppress a possessive snarl. Yours. A hand on his shoulder makes him look at you, and you reach out with your mind, wrapping a blanket around his senses. You want him in that sort of lucid dreaming state where everything is real but nothing matters, at least until you've done something about that arm. He hasn't even had any painkillers.

"I'm not going to argue with common sense," you say. "Come downstairs, I needed to make sure my implements were in tune anyway, I have a healing ritual I want to use."

"Well, sure," he says with deep irony. "Why not."

You bring the bowl and cooler of blood.

As you make your preparations, laying out a circle of salt and marking glyphs in chalk, you make conversation.

"You went to a butcher first?"

"I should have realized they'd be closed. I was rushing. It was on the way to the emergency vet, though, which I knew would be open, and I thought it wouldn't hurt."

"So you get to the shop, it's dark, you're in a rush."

"I get out of the car to check if there's anyone there late. Stupid."

"You had a long day and then discovered the existence of the supernatural."

"The supernatural – what else is there?"

"Oh, never mind that. Definitely not important. You definitely should not worry about that."

"You are a terrible liar. I have students who are better liars than you."

"Hm. I'm not actually very good with people. Historically."

"I wonder why," Henderson said, dryly.

"Well, no. There are a lot of vampires who are wonderful with people. Could you step into the center there? I need to close the circle."

He does so, standing awkwardly.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Wondering if I should have gotten you a chair before closing the circle? Ah. More generally, I'm going to be artificially passing you just a little of my natural healing. The spell name, translated, is sharing strength."

"And how is it going to go horribly wrong?"

"Now, I know you might think it would be a bad idea for a vampire that's already mad with hunger to weaken itself further in the presence of someone hurt, but that's why I brought the cooler down."

"…I don't know what anyone was talking about, you have a divine bedside manner."

You do not have to check his thoughts to figure out whether or not he is being sarcastic. He is being sarcastic.

"You were telling me about your adventure."

"It was a disaster area, not an adventure."

"I had a piratical adventure once. It was a disaster from beginning to end, too."

"I mean it was literally a disaster area. Who leaves a giant pothole just growing in the middle of their parking lot for anyone to stumble over? I'm lucky I didn't break an ankle, too."

You begin to see.

"And you went from there to the emergency vet, not the hospital?"

"It wasn't really hurting that much, then. The kid at the vet was pretty useless, but he said their large animal vet might be able to help. She's the one with the farm. So I got a coffee and drove out there. She was… pretty nice, for a woman living alone who had a strange man turn up at her house at midnight."

"Ah?" You were drawing in a particularly tricky set of concentric circles, so you couldn't say much.

"She had a baseball bat but she didn't threaten me with it or anything."

"This woman – attractive?"

"No flippin' comment."

"And then?"

"She said she might be open to a deal if we turned up during normal hours and explained properly, but for now she'd have to ask me to leave. So I left. Well. Tried to leave. There's only a dirt road to her place and I went off it into the drainage ditch. She helped me push it back out. Levers."

"You did something to your wrist then?"

"Must have. I had nothing and nothing was going to be open, so I figured I might as well get a sling and an x-ray. Not that that worked out. Still not sure if it's sprained or broken."

"It would actually be better if it was broken, bones are more closely aligned with blood."

You get out your ritual bowl and knife and make a cut on your arm. Your blood pools in the black bowl, catching the light oddly. Already your magic is gathering, a formless breeze and the scent of iron and copper.

Henderson is staring again.

"You push your car out of the ditch, you drive back to the emergency room," you prompt. You want to know he's not going into shock or something.

"Place is empty except for the nurse on duty, who hustles me into an exam room after hearing about my arm. Parking lot was full, though. I waited… I don't know how long. An hour?"

It can't have been an hour, you think, not with how long he was gone. Pain does funny things to the mind.

"Keep talking, don't mind the chanting," you prompt, and then begin said chanting, keeping your own voice low. It's not like ritual chanting is that interesting to listen to the hundredth time you try the same spell.

"I'm wandering around the hospital and there's patients, but no doctors. Just… quiet. It was creepy, like everyone went on break at the same time. Maybe I was just in the wrong place, I don't know. I ended up by some sort of supply closet someone had left open. And, well… it seemed like a good idea at the time?"

You nod encouragingly.

"I had a cooler in the car already, from home. I just. Went out and got it. Came back. Filled it up. Left again. The ER nurse was on the phone, didn't even look at me."

Your chant crescendos. The magic crests, and the wave falls. Your blood, shed into the ritual bowl with allspice and rosemary, evaporates into a red mist that settles over Henderson's arm before evaporating into the air.

He flexes his arm cautiously, then more enthusiastically, and then meets your eyes.

"That was the most profoundly creepy thing that has ever happened to me."

Mortal awe and terror. Almost as good as blood, and something you inspire very seldom.

"How's your arm?"

"Still sprained, I think? But – better. A lot better."

"Take it easy with it."

"Oh, trust me, I'm going to. At least I'm not left handed."

"Going up to bed?"

"I suppose I should."

"I'm used to people who aren't nocturnal, you're not going to offend me or anything."

"Right. Well. Good night. And… thanks?"

"You're welcome."

You're going to clean up your ritual space and eat some more, but what then?

[]You were going to reactivate the wards as your test ritual tonight. You still could.
[]Go on your walk as planned. Inching around on your knees drawing on the floor makes it sound like an even better idea, and you can gather fresh ritual ingredients as you go.
[]You're curious about the hospital. You could go have a look. (You are definitely not interested in if there is any more blood just lying around for the taking. Definitely not.)
[]Write-in