"Enemy incoming!" Lucien shouted in warning when he sensed the energy of the ghouls close to them. As a necromancer himself, the redhead was able to tell when creatures of the dark arts were in his periphery.

With his warning came a rotten smell that only Alka was able to detect. His olfactory senses weren't as refined as Artemus' but still better than that of the others.

"Akida, fly!" He told the avian.

Together, they went up in the air and were narrowly missed by the two ghouls that had lunged at the spot where they'd been.

"The fuck are we lookin' at?!" Sebastian asked Lucien since the redhead was the first to shout out a warning.

Lucien's eyes were glowing an eerie red as he stared at the monsters. "Ghouls," he answered. "This forest has been overrun by many of them."

"How many?" Sebastian grimly asked. Artemus was somewhere inside there. To think that he was surrounded by the monsters, injured, or even dying made the mage antsy.

"I can't say. I'm not a necromancer," the redhead answered.

"Oh fuck that bullshit Lucien. We all know so let's stop pretendin' you ain't one."

"A few hundreds."

_________

Artemus was like the wind blowing between the trees. He was a wild thing of fur and instincts as he ran through the forest, holding a slim necklace in his jaws. His clothes were lost but he needed the necklace which served as a dimension pocket.

In the pitch-black darkness of the forest, his eyes adjusted and saw better than the ghouls who were blindly chasing his fast-fading scent. But every once in a while, the black cat caused a branch to fall so that the noise would attract them towards him. The wild animals had already either evacuated or had met their natural conclusion in the stomachs of the monsters. Artemus felt like he was the only thing alive in the forest. He didn't have a plan yet but knew that if the ghouls stopped chasing him, Abigail would be found.

The greater good of humanity took precedence over a little girl's life, but Artemus couldn't find the resolve in him to abandon her so heartlessly. In both circumstances, he had to remain alive and that was all he attempted for now.

_____

The ghouls had been slaughtered and Sebastian's nerves were fraught with worry. It was an easy task for him to destroy the entire forest and its inhabitants but Artemus was probably inside. And if they took their sweet time hunting the ghouls and searching for the anti-mage, who knows what dire events could take place in that period of time.

Alka's ring was still giving them hints but its directions erratically changed like a broken compass. The only explanation was that Artemus was moving very fast and the ring's ability to track was not fine-tuned enough as it got closer to the target.

"I have a plan but I'll need sacrifices," Lucien told the group. "Blood from all of you." This wasn't going to be a repeat performance of what he'd done with the assassins that tried to kill Akida. It would be even better.

As much as they trusted Lucien, it was a bit nerve-wracking to give up blood to a necromancer. None of them knew what powers Lucien was hiding.

"Yer not goin' to turn us into your puppets, are ya?" Sebastian asked.

The redhead shrugged. "Does someone have a container or a bowl where I can collect blood?"

Alka was the one carrying their supplies. He took out a wide-mouthed bowl, an umbrella, a knife, and offered it to Lucien who thanked him.

"I'm going to borrow power from all of you so don't be surprised if you find yourself weakened after I cast my spell," he informed them. "If any of you harbour even a whisper of hesitance, the spell will not work. You will freely give me your blood and your sacrifice, or not at all."

For Alka and Sebastian, there was no hesitation. But what of Magnus and Akida?

"I owe Artemus," Akida told Lucien. His eyes were clear and resolute. "You may take my blood."

"I trust you, Lulu," Magnus also answered. "Give me the knife. I'll go first before I get cold feet."

Lucien handed Magnus the blade as he gave them further instructions. "You'll have to hurry because they'll smell the blood and find us. Prepare to defend against the ghouls if need be while I prepare my spell."

____

Scarlet blood dripped into the bowl from a deep cut that Magnus made on his palm.

"I can make it come out faster if you-"

"Go ahead," the fire mage told him. Time wasn't on their side and he couldn't afford to play coy since he was already giving up blood.

Lucien gave him a reassuring look and then placed a hand on Magnus' wrist. It was an unnecessary gesture because Lucien could manipulate blood from a distance. He however did it to not spook the others when they were already unnerved by what was going on.

"Wow," the fire mage softly said when he saw his blood suddenly begin to flow faster and in larger amounts.

Akida had his hands on his hips as he watched the glowing red eyes staring into the bowl of blood. The avian had been wary of the child after the murder that he had discovered at Nua. And now the little brat had grown into a scary blood mage and necromancer. In hindsight, it was no surprise; An almost poetic progress for someone capable of taking a life without remorse when so young.

"Sebastian," Lucien calmly informed the mage. "Five to seven ghouls proximate to our location towards the northeast."

The mage hurried off to take care of the problem. Alka took two more knives and handed one to Akida.

"Is it alright if we all contribute at the same time or will that cause a problem with the spell?" He asked Lucien.

"Go ahead," Lucien told them. He would have taken blood from them together if they weren't surrounded by so many unknown dangers. The redhead was aware of the presence of another powerful necromancer and he needed everyone alert just in case a sudden attack came their way.

"This is enough, Magnus. Get some hemostatic from Alka's bag."

The fire mage nodded. He knew that Lucien and Syryn were both of demonic origin but it came as a shock to him that Lucien could also use blood magic. He reevaluated his estimation of the red head's power level. Luci wasn't a show-off so nobody knew just what he was truly capable of. Tonight, they'd all found out that packed under that veneer of youth and mischief, there was a chilling potential for danger that would have gone all sorts of wrong if the redhead had grown up under different, more dire circumstances.