Death, Loot & Vampires - Book 2L Chapter 6: Professor Vincent
Chapter 6
Professor Vincent
Teaching occult studies was something I could do. Not only did I know more than most about the subject. I also felt that it lined up nicely with my goals. This world shrouded the occult in far too much mysticism to be practical, overcomplicated the subject to the point that most people had no clue what was safe and what wasn’t. The curriculum Wink had given me muddied the waters in such a way that it even implied many things that were safe weren’t and many things that weren’t safe were.
People needed to understand the occult better in order to stop making so many mistakes that caused them and others to end up corrupted, making the world less safe for my family, so I was happy to teach the academy’s students how to do that. They would one day be some of the most influential people in Murdell, so stopping even one of them from being corrupted could prevent disaster.
Eight days into my new job, I was sitting with my feet on desk, meditating to refill my core with mana, when my classroom door opened. It happened during the lunch break which was a little odd. A young blonde woman, wearing the plain black robe all students wore, tried to sneak into my class and head for the back of the room.
Dark tendrils of black smoke wafted off her body indicating she was cursed. Unlike most of the students, she had chosen to have her families the coat of arms embroidered on her uniform which told me exactly who I was dealing with.
I sighed as I took my feet off my desk. “Miss Winterton, my desk now.” I was getting very good at doing a stern professor voice.
Heather froze and then dropped her head, walking to my desk under a cloud of anxiety and depression. “I didn’t do anything,” she said weakly, hiding her face with her hair.
This was an all too familiar sight. “You should meet a person’s gaze when you’re talking to them. It shows confidence.” She forced herself to look up. Her eyes were gentle blue and her face… “Wow, that’s a lot of acne.” Her lips trembled as she blushed with embarrassment, on the verge of tears. “Empty your storage pouch onto my desk.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she repeated.
I’d had this conversation a dozen times a day since starting this job. “Yes, you did. You walked into my class cursed. Now empty your storage pouch so I can find the cursed item.”
As the head of occult studies, no one found it strange that I could tell that people were curse. They expected it.
She blinked a little surprised. “I’m cursed?”
“Common problem around here. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Darksmith had more curses than universities had STI’s and that was saying something.
She removed her storage pouch from her waist and began emptying it on the desk. I quickly ran out of desk space as she unloaded everything except a kitchen sink. In total she had twenty-three cursed items. Then I opened her purse and added all her platinum to the pile of curse items.
It was the largest haul yet. “Congratulations, you win the prize for being the most cursed student in school.”
She frowned. “What?”
“It’s a joke.”
“It’s not very funny.”
“I’m your professor so you have to laugh.”
That got me a small smile.
“Good enough.”
I started picking up the items. Ancient vampires were immune to all, but the nastiest curses and we could tell what those were, so there was no risk of us picking them up. I’d been exposed to hundreds of minor curses over the past eight days, so I could tell what each one did just by looking at them.
The curses before me weren’t that powerful, but in combination they were mildly horrible. One made her feel self-conscious. Another made her forgetful. Another increased all negative emotions. Another made her scared. Then there were the others that made her sick.
I picked up bottle of perfumed oil and frowned. “This one is going to be a problem.”
“Why?”
“It leaves you barren and it’s not a minor curse.” I picked up the trash bin next to my desk and placed it on my desk, holding the bottle above.
With one spell, I disintegrated the bottle. With another I captured the curse. As the bottle crumbled to dust, joining all the other cursed items I’d destroyed so far today, a sickly black shadow was left be behind. It wriggled between my fingers, trying to force its way through my sink.
Curses were thought to be a form of living magic, like a bacterial infection. They could grow stronger or weaker over time and even change from their intended purpose. I sensed no lifeforce inside the curse, but that didn’t mean that those theories were wrong. They certainly behaved like they were alive.
With a small effort of will and mana I made the curse stronger, before encapsulating it in another spell. A ball of dark violent magic formed in the palm of my hand, surrounding the curse. I made a throwing motion, sending the curse out into the world.
We watched as it faded from sight within a few feet.
Heather continued to frown. “What did you do?”
“Return to sender curse. Whoever created that curse is going to end up barren and unlike you it’s not going to be easily fixed.”
“Are you allowed to do that?”
“Page thirty-eight, line seventeen of the school rule book. A professor may use excessive force in defence of themselves or students. A curse constitutes an attack and sending it back stronger constitutes protecting you with excessive force.”
She leaned away from me. “Couldn’t you do it without making the curse stronger?”
“I could, but there is no rule that says I have to.” I opened the top draw, pulled out a piece of blank paper, and wrote a quick note. “Take this note to the infirmary at the end of the day. They will correct the damage this and other curses did to you.” I met her gaze. “This curse is not a free pass for you and your boyfriend to have a bit of fun. The sooner you go the better. I’ll be visiting the infirmary tomorrow morning to make sure you went.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d had to deal with this sort of curse. And the new rules were because of how some students had treated my instructions.
I glanced at the other curse items. “Are any of these items important to you?”
She pointed to the broach. “That cost three months of my allowance, please don’t destroy it.”
I put the broach aside. “Anything else?”
She shook her head.
I picked up the items one by one and disintegrated them, capturing the curse, and returning it to the sender stronger than before. The spell didn’t form for eight of the curse, which meant they were naturally occurring curses from unstable enchantments or improper storage. I dispelled them and moved on.
When the last item was destroyed, I gave her a very pointed look. I’d noticed a trend with her items. “You like to shop at discount antique stores, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“Stop.”
She scowled at me. “But they’re so much cheaper than the high-end stores.”
“The reason those places sell their items so cheap, is because you can get cursed. Argument over.”
I turned to her box of healing potions and lifted the lid. I pulled one from the box and broke the seal. I lifted it to my nose for show, already knowing it was clean.
She went back to frowning. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve got so many curse items that it wouldn’t surprise me if your healing potions were poisoned.”
Her surprise was amusing. “You know the smell of poison?”
“I know the smell and colour of healing potions and when it comes to poison all of them either effect the colour or smell of a healing potion. This is clean. Now would you like me to remove your acne?”
A smile exploded across her face. “Yes!”
I passed her the potion. “Put the liquid in your mouth and swallow it when the pain starts.” She did as instructed. “This is going to hurt a lot.”
Her eyes widened as I tapped her forehead and used a basic spell to scan her body. Then I used death magic to kill all the bacteria causing the acne and necrotic magic to disintegrate the effected flesh. They weren’t spells, just a direct and controlled application of magic which made this much harder for most people.
I found it easier than casting spells.
My scan showed me, sixty percent of her body was covered in acne, so this would have felt like getting a second degree fully body sunburn.
She swallowed the potion as the pain hit her. The painkiller aspect immediately took effect as her recovery rate massively increased. Her hand reached for her mirror, then she hesitated.
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“Your face is currently covered in ash and is going to be quite red for the next little while, but it should be back to normal by the time class starts. If you hurry, you have enough time to pack away your things and take a quick bath before my lecture.”
Heather threw her things into her storage pouch as I wrote her a receipt for the item and money she wouldn’t be getting back just yet. I made her wait long enough to read the receipt and sign my copy, then she dashed out of the room.
I got one of the many cloth bags from my bottom draw and swept the broach and the platinum into it. Then I wrote her name on a piece of card and tied it to the bag. Finally, I went to the workshop and added her bags to the other ten bags of item’s I’d confiscated today. Then I returned to my desk and wrote a report to her parents outlining what the items were and how the curses functioned.
I didn’t embellish or withhold any details. The North and South had a shaky truce, and all the students were members of the elite, so this could have been the result of espionage or family infighting. Darksmith was neutral territory, so we didn’t take sides only report what we found. I did emphasise that I had cast a return to sender spell, like I had with all the others. Hopefully, the thought that those who had harmed their daughter, were now suffering worse than she had, would stop her parent from escalating the situation too much.
When I was finished, I went back to meditating and restoring my mana.
In the past eight days, I’d mastered the full range of intermediate tiers spells that death magic practitioners had access to, and I was now working my way through advanced magic.
Practicing advanced magic required one of two things, talent or high agility. The memories sitting in my head covered the talent portion and my vampiric nature covered the agility. If these were the only advantages I had, I wouldn’t be progressing so fast.
Being aware of everything around me meant, I noticed any mistake I made, and, more often than not, I was able to stop the spell from falling apart. My memory made it simple for me to correct any part I did incorrectly, so mistakes only happened once. Also, my body’s ability to regenerate allowed me to be far more reckless than any sane person would be. I’d blown myself apart several dozen times to train faster.
Practitioners worked through each tier of spell for that very reason, and while it was okay to occasionally skip ahead for a spell or two, a proper grounding in each tier of magic speed up the process of learning the tier above it. So now that I had the job and Kathrine was safe, I wanted to learn magic properly.
That didn’t mean I hadn’t skipped ahead a little.
I’d learned two more expert tier spells, the deathlock and deadlands spells. The first was the most powerful stationary barrier spell a necromancer could create, which was useful for if I needed to protect Kathrine. The second opened a portal to the Deadlands.
The Deadlands was a slightly out of sync reality, invisible to the normal world. Ghosts and other spiritual entities resided there, watching the living world, looking for a chance to push through the barrier and enter. Entering the Deadlands would allow me to move as quickly as I wanted in an environment where time moved faster. I’d even be able to cross running water, but every second I was there would cost me a small amount of lifeforce.
Crossing through the Deadlands also came with risks. There were creatures that lived there that could kill me, so it wasn’t something I planned to use very often.
The lunch break ended, and my students began to file into class. A few minutes before the second bell, I watched a bad romance movie play in the front row, as Heather Winterton the most cursed young woman at Darksmith returned and took a seat next to a below average looking guy who didn’t recognise her.
What followed was a very predictable plot where a now very attractive young woman excitedly asked out the only guy that had been kind and friendly to her when she was an ugly duckling. The young man was just as excited about her transformation as she was, and not just because of his attraction. He cared about her deeply and was happy for her. They were going to live happily ever after and have a dozen kids by the enthusiasm she showed.
I pulled cursed students aside as they entered and made them empty their storage pouches onto my desk, clearing my students of their curses, and showing the other students what I did with curses I found. None of my students made a fuss, until a boy at the back of the room was hit with my return to sender spell. He started screaming as boils appeared over every inch of his body, causing everyone to turn and watch in horror.
I was building a reputation as a professor you did not want to cross and whenever something like this happened, it reinforced that reputation. His friends carried him out of class with magic rushing him to the infirmary.
I thought that he was going to be my most interesting example, until a girl walked through the door with a serious curse. Her curse involved a possession and the entity controlling her tried to attack me the moment it was expose.
I ended up having to carry her bruised unconscious form to the infirmary, where I handed her over to Dalin to deal with, having to shout over my other screaming student.
I’d brought Dalin hundreds of cursed objects and several students by this stage, so he didn’t make a fuss as I explained the situation and tied the girl to the bed. I told him I had more cursed items to drop off at the end of the day and then headed back to class.
Yesterday, Dalin had received a letter from the church confirming what I’d told him. He’d finally begun to relax. Despite the lack of confirmation, he’d still visited Kathrine twice a day to check on her condition, bringing potions to stop muscle wastage and keep her health, along with clean feeding tubs. He didn’t like that I was sending curse back to their creators, rather than destroying them, but he did like how thorough I was when it came to my job.
Everyone was in their seats in the middle of a conversation as I walked through the door. There were only a few empty spaces in the 120 seats, because this class wasn’t a full class.
They immediately fell silent as I walked to the chalkboard, peering down at me partly curious and partly nervous. “Good afternoon students, I’m Professor Vincent, you’re new defence against the dark arts instructor.”
They all frowned.
I was used to this reaction.
“Today, is going to be an introductory lesson and if you pay attention I don’t really care if you sleep through my other lessons, because today’s lesson contains everything that most of you will ever need to know to protect yourself from the occult.”
A young man at the front of the class held up his hand and waited for me to nod in his direction. I’d noticed that all the classes where I cursed a student were exceptionally well behaved. “Sir, isn’t this class occult studies?”
“Good first question.” I waved my hand towards the chalkboard and took control of a piece of chalk with basic spell. “What is the occult?” The piece of chalk wrote my question on the board. “Does anyone know?”
A few hands went up.
I’d given this lecture more than forty times and I was getting very good at it. I pointed to the class’s youngest student at the front.
She had a full head of bushy red hair and was one of the few students to have her book open ready to take notes. She looked to be only sixteen which meant that she had to be some sort of magical genius or savant to be enrolled here. She gave me serious Hermione vibes. I liked students that gave that vibe because it didn’t slow down my lecture.
She stood up as if challenging me. “The occult is that which can only do harm.” The chalk added her answer to the board.
“Which is also known as what?” I pointed to her again.
“The dark arts.”
“What is the only safe question you can ask about anything to do with the occult?” I pointed to her again.
She rolled her eyes. “There are no safe questions about the occult.”
“Wrong. The only safe question you can ask about anything to do with the occult is what does this do? It could be a curse, a spell, an item, a condition. It doesn’t matter. The only safe question you can always ask yourself or others is what does this do? Now why is that important? I’ll give you a hint it’s related to combat magic.”
A new hand shot up and I pointed to the owner. He was in his early twenties but had a little more muscle than the average student, showing he actually exercised.
“Um, ah, if you know what your opponent’s spell will do, you might also know a way to counter their spell.”
“Slightly off topic, but perfectly on point. If you know an instrument will possess anyone who picks it up and make them play until they die from exhaustion, then you know not to pick it up. Knowing what something related to the occult does is most of the battle and this knowledge is perfectly safe. Does anyone know what the most unsafe question you can ask about anything to do with the occult?”
Another young man spoke up as I pointed to him. “How will this give me power?”
“No, but good answer.”
Another young woman tried her luck. “How can I use this?”
“No, but also good answer. These are both bad questions to ask yourself about anything to do with the occult. But they are not the most dangerous.” I pointed to Hermione.
She blushed. “I don’t know.”
“Another good answer and something you all need to remember. There is only one safe question that you can ask about the occult. What does this do? And if your answer is I don’t know, your only response should be to turn around and walk the other way.”
Hermione raised her hand again. “What’s the most unsafe question you can ask?”
No one was raising their hand anymore which showed how poorly this subject was taught before I got here. “The safest question you can ask about anything to do with the occult is what does this do? The most dangerous question is how does it do it? This question is also the most important question to answer and is why the vast majority of those who study the occult go insane. Why do they go insane?”
Hermione raised her hand. “Because the occult can be described as that which only does harm and sometimes even known how something works the way it does can involve knowledge that is harmful to you.”
“But why is this class called the defence against the dark arts,” the first guy blurted out.
I grinned. “Because the occult is that which only does harm. It is also known as the dark arts. And this is a class that teaches you how not to be harmed by it. So, I renamed it to what it should have been called in the first place. So welcome to defences against the dark art, I’ll be your lecturer, and by the end of this class you will know everything you need to know to stop you from being needlessly harmed by the occult.”
***
An hour after dinner, I lifted Kathrine’s arm and gently wiped it with a damp soapy rag, before drying it. Sponge baths were the only way to keep Kathrine clean and they needed to be done twice, sometimes three times a day. Keeping her asleep and fed was extremely messy, but I didn’t mind. It reminded me of how Sandra and I had taken care of her as a baby.
To my disappointment, Kathrine mostly invested her attributes into her agility and mana regeneration. She was more prone to bedsores and muscle wastage than a hero of her level should be. If she’d invested her attributes like her brother, it would be much easier to take care of her.
As it was, I turned her every few hours, and once a day manipulated her arms and legs to help with circulation. Dalin was feeding her a diet of raw eggs, so she wouldn’t choke to death if she vomited in her sleep. With my hearing, that would be close to impossible, but I like the precaution.
I knew I couldn’t keep her asleep forever, eventually she would have to wake up, but not yet. She was still suffering from what I had done and waking her up might driver her insane. I would move heaven and earth to make sure that didn’t happen.
When I was done cleaning her, I gently put her on her side and threw a clean blanket over her. I cast the deathlock spell, surrounding her in a protective barrier, and then left the room and headed for the training room.
When my core was empty from casting spells, I checked on Kathrine and turned her again. I’d already read the entire private library, and visited the academy library this morning, so to help keep the Curse of Sloth at bay, I went to my study and began writing another book. Contessa’s library had a lot of useful information that I needed to condense into textbooks for my academy.
These books would help me keep my family safe, so I remained aware of the world around me while I worked on them. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I ran out of things to do, but I wasn’t willing to find out. I was already taking other steps to keep me more active.
***
It’s amazing how cursing a bunch of your students can motivate the others to take your class seriously. Despite my offer to let my students ignore my lectures, only a handful across the entire school had taken me up on it, and every one of them had apologised before doing so, explaining that they were behind in another class, and couldn’t pass up an opportunity to catch up.
The bell rang right as I finished my lecture, like it did every lecture. “There is a signup sheet for extracurricular activities beside the door. I’ve created an undead enhancement club and anyone who can perform death magic is welcome to attend.”
One of the necromancers raised his hand. “Sir, there’s already an undead club.”
“Professor Fergus’s club is about summoning undead. If you want to learn how to summon a death knight, his club is where you should go. If you want to learn how to turn an undead skeleton you’ve already created into a death knight, then my club is for you. While going through each enhancement stage takes longer, the undead this process creates is significantly stronger and easier to maintain.”
As my class continued to file out, several necromancers stopped and added their names to the signup sheet.
