I was relieved to find out that the ghoul was unable to cause me any lasting damage during the short struggle.

  Flesh wounds were easily mended, and my energy reserves didn't take a real hit, as even at greatly enhanced intensity, there was only so much the ghoul could devour in a few seconds. It took some time to naturally stabilize and stop regenerating, though my energy levels were slightly lower than before the fight.

  We gathered near the window inside the ghoul's apartment. There were no clutches of eggs, smaller ghouls, or anything to indicate it lived there, only undisturbed dust that ended right at the window. The brutalized form of our prey was lying by a wall.

  "So every time we use magic, we have to draw the symbol?" Edith asked, touching a small cut on her hand and healing it with a command.

  Kenny finished his lesson, only touching on the Ankh, the symbol of life, and the three of them were sporting it on their palms. The most important thing was the cost of the spell, the willingness to sacrifice some of your inner light to create the effect. Not that they were aware that other effects were possible or how to achieve them.

  "You can have it ready beforehand," Kenny replied. "On a piece of clothing or a stone," or permanently branded on the skin, left unsaid.

  "What about the corruption?" Victor asked. "I find it hard to believe that thinking about sifting it would be enough. It's too feely. Can't it be more tangible?" He waved his fingers.

  "You don't think about it," I corrected him. "You will it. Everything your energy does happens because you commanded it. You are in control."

  After a moment to let them digest it, I added another offer. "We could also teach you to sense the energies in a better way."

  "But that would cost us. Wouldn't it?" Victor finished for me.

  "It would also help you," I shrugged. "It didn't take me long to find a ghoul when I used it."

  "I'm not averse to some hard work," Victor replied.

  He looked unconvinced.

  "Okay," Kenny clapped his hands with a smile. "You are almost ready to start."

  He took out a bunch of small stones from his pocket. On a closer look, they were all flattened and stamped with a pentacle design. He came prepared.

  "This is the symbol to contain the essence," He showed it to them. "Guide it to it, and you'll be able to save it for later."

  "Looks like the pentagram the Priestess was waving when you were out," Edith told Benjy.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  Edith was the first to take it and crouch near the ghoul. She cleared her throat self-consciously.

  "Don't forget to stay in contact," Kenny instructed.

  She rested a hand on the body and closed her eyes in concentration.

  A stronger than necessary flare of golden light signified her attempt. Not the most efficient way of doing it, but it was effective. The small pentacle was fast to fill with the alien essence, and I couldn't detect any corruption inside it. The drain was quick enough to make the change to the ghoul's appearance visible. It churned and dried noticeably in seconds.

  "Damn," Benjy whistled. "Remind me never to ask you to heal me," he joked.

  Edith was out of breath, but she looked proudly at the tiny stone.

  "It doesn't look any different," she noticed. "I can only feel that there is something there when I try to Drain a little from it."

  "Let's get to it," Victor commanded, and they started to work on it together, the small pile of stones next to them being filled one by one.

  Only once, I had to stop Benjy and remind him to concentrate on taking out the corruption.

  "A pleasure," I said, taking the four professed stones and splitting them immediately with Kenny.

  Victor was holding the rest like his last paycheck, finally putting all of them in his pocket.

  "Not interested in a magical Sight, perchance?" I asked, angling for the remaining pentacles.

  He silently measured me with a glance.

  "I reckon I already have an inkling," he replied.

  He whispered a word and winced. When he regained his composure, his eyes started darting all over me, settling on the general area of the pentacle.

  I was surprised and closed my eyes to watch him. Instead of using Kenny's method with his hands, which I wasn't familiar with, or mine with the third eye, he simply used his own eyes.

  His glowing eyes made contact with the symbol above my forehead.

  Of course, why use a drawing of an eye to symbolize sight when you have perfectly good eyes at the ready? I was so focused on inventing symbols for every action that I didn't think to try it myself.

  After all, the words we spoke to help us activate a spell and the symbols we used were not the only things that could hold meaning. Apparently, body parts did the job, and who knows what else? Those same words could be written and still mean the same thing, yet we didn't think of that and instead immediately moved on with symbols since we already had one that worked.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  I watched as the invested energy depleted and his eyes returned to normal.

  "Interesting," he intoned. "What do the other ones do?"

  I made the universal sign to pay me, but he shook his head.

  "That was a productive day," he proclaimed. "I'm glad we went with you on this one."

  "What now?" Benjy asked.

  I was hoping the answer to that didn't include backstabbing.

  "Back to the plaza," Victor replied. "We can finally have more people join now that I have the means to pay," he patted his pocket.

  "I can lead some new guys," Edith immediately offered. "I have some experience managing new workers."

  "You joining my crew?" Victor asked us, ignoring his companion's eager suggestions. "We'll have more guys hunting, better organized, not getting fleeced anymore. There's a lot of work to be done. We could really build something if enough folks work together."

  I didn't see a reason for it. I could make more by hunting with Kenny, not having to split with them. And any sense of safety would be ruined by a constant worry about betrayal. I refused to let go of the thought that I was merely a bag of fuel for someone desperate enough.

  "No, I'm not a team kind of guy," I replied.

  "I think it's the right thing to do," Kenny said. "We should help each other. Keep it safe for everyone."

  I don't know why that caught me by surprise. It wasn't the first time he voiced it.

  "You didn't see the fight at the plaza. They were fighting each other for scraps, brutally," I remembered. "Then, some goons tried to take my spear," I added. "Those that can care for themselves don't need you, and the others will bring you down."

  Victor watched the by-play without getting involved, except raising his brow incredulously at my reasoning. He was clearly not cautious enough for my tastes if he didn't get the simple idea that people were dangerous.

  Kenny wasn't too cautious, either. If he had his way from the start, we would both be ghoul chow by the first one we'd seen.

  "That's not true," Kenny argued. "There're plenty of people that need a little help. Maybe if we share our knowledge with them-"

  "Don't go sharing it too freely," I cut him off, shaking my head. "Or at least don't expect to get much in return."

  That silenced Kenny for a second.

  "I can't say anything to change your mind, can I?" He asked, downcast.

  "No," I replied calmly. "I was honest about it from the start."

  Kenny moved towards Victor making his decision.

  "Maybe, you'll give it a second thought eventually," Kenny said hopefully.

  I really won't, but I made a vague motion in return.

  "See you guys around. I hope you'll prove me wrong," I finished on an optimistic note and turned to leave.

  Kenny was sad, and Victor looked disappointed at my decision.

  "Don't you want to at least walk back with us?" Victor asked.

  "Nah," I declined. "Hard to get lost around here, with the Pillar to show the way and all."

  ***

  Several days after the amiable separation with Kenny, I was resting on a roof, watching the green lights on the distant rocky ceiling.

  A nice long walk always helped me put things into perspective, and this one wasn't an exception. The weariness in my legs was worth the information I gathered, and the experience of enjoying the vistas and studying the defunct fountains and the surviving statues was a little bonus to the deal.

  I had just finished the round trip around the city center, the Pillar always at a distance to the left of me, and the results of the impromptu survey were discouraging.

  Time after time, I had stopped to scan for ghouls, pushing my Sight as far as I was comfortable with.

  Several times, I noticed groups of people that I steered clear of. An easy thing to do when they didn't have the same abilities as I did, though I didn't know how long that would last.

  And ever so rarely had I detected something other than people—shades and ghouls.

  The area I covered was sizable enough to judge the whole city by it, and I didn't like my findings. There were too few of them.

  I still held hope that I missed some, hidden behind the walls, or that other areas farther from the center were less depleted. But even with those assumptions, if I was correct, the Undercity held no more than a hundred more ghouls at most.

  Ironic. Days ago, I would have been happy to discover they were going extinct, but not now. Not when they were crucial to our survival.

  After understanding the issue, I decided to engage in a little personal project that could help me solve it.

  Spying.

  Hours I spent observing the latest ghoul I found, hoping to glean some understanding of its behavior. I would have been happy to discover they have lairs or tunnels to hide and reproduce in, but the reality was stranger.

  Not a single movement.

  The ghoul's energy remained in the relaxed state I was familiar with, and it didn't move at all. I wasn't even sure if it was breathing.

  Previously, I was troubled with the prospect of joining a team because of my lack of trust, but I had an even better reason to remain independent now. If the ghouls' population was so limited, it was not enough to go around. Not for long.

  Fortunately, I wasn't like Kenny. I didn't look for safety in numbers.

  I sat back up to analyze the single ghoul I detected again. There was no change, but it wasn't what I was looking for. The otherness in the ghoul's energy, the corruption as Victor called it, was more apparent now. How could it not be when I was the source of something similar to it not so long ago?

  During the attack, the unimaginable pain I felt—the agony brought by the ghoul caused me to spill a lot of energy. It wasn't an exact match, but the energy I generated was closer to the ghoul's life force than it was to me in my usual state. It was hard to believe that the energy I produced, even if only for a little while, was made to resemble so much the monster's.

  That was the reason they took so much time to kill. They were doing to us the same thing we were doing to them. We filtered their essence when we Drained them, and they caused the energy we generated to change to something more palatable to them when they fed.

  What did it mean? Were they subsisting on pain and suffering? Or was it something more than that?

  I cleared my mind of the more philosophical questions to concentrate on the immediate.

  Two failings on my part made the last hunt an almost failure. The spear didn't have the necessary stopping force to hold the enemy at a distance, and I lacked the ability to hide my presence.

  I wasn't going to repeat my mistakes, so I needed to create something to help me.

  Luckily, I still had just enough metal to work with. The modifications to my spear would be the easiest part.

  Hiding, on the other hand... I would have to devise a new spell for that. One that was totally new and not inspired by something somebody else already proved possible. And for that spell, I had just the object in mind to symbolize the concealment it would produce.